Rain rain and more rain!

It has rained so much since Christmas, thankfully our land has not flooded but much land is under water causing hardship to both man and animals. Here are some pictures I took last week in Co. Mayo

Near Kilmaine Co.Mayo

This last photograph I hope to use as a starting point for a painting or rather an ink piece on canvas, it already looks like blobbed ink if you squint at it.

Istagram

I have just discovered Istagram, its such fun, here are some of my pictures.

A.L.A.W.2013

I finished my second alphabet book for 2013. I used nice Japanese paper for the cover and made it a meandering book.

you can see more of the project over here

I'm late, I'm late.......

Gosh, I see I missed both Christmas and New Year on my blog, so belated greetings, I wish you all a Happy and Healthy 2014.
It has been cold and wet since the New Year but I see a little stretch in the day, I love this time of year as we slowly emerge from the darkness and Spring is almost here
I have been doing some sewing, tooth fairy pillows, do you like them?

Quiet Man

I drive through Cong on my way to Connemara and recently they had a week end of celebrations in connection with the John Ford movie "The Quiet Man" where they unveiled a life size statue of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, Maureen actually did the unveiling.

Clifden Arts Trail

Clifden a place I have mentioned many times before is a beautiful town on the edge of the Atlantic. They hold an Arts Festival every September, and as part of it they have an Arts Trail on the shop windows. This post is a little late for you to catch it live but I wanted to share my contribution to it.  I display my work on Derval Joyce's window, she is my sister and to keep it in the family my nephew Mark Joyce exhibited his sculptures. Mark has an interesting page on Facebook Mythology Iireland that you should also check out.

2nd Alphabet Started......at last!

I was so far behind on my second alphabet that I thought I'd never catch up. But today was so wet and miserable with storm like conditions raging outside and that combined with my new enthusiasm for Japanese ink drawing I made a start with the alphabet.
I had been practicing/doodling on a sketch book where I had already some rough montbretia, so I got the idea to divide it into the 7cm. x 7cm squares required for A.L.A.W.

 Using red ink as we used on our Japanese drawings, I stamped the alphabet, with a rubber stamp set I got last Christmas as a gift.

You can see more of this over at A Letter a Week.  Now I  have to start thinking about the book I will make to keep the letters in. I would like to use some of this paper,  they are only off cuts so I don't know if I will have enough to use for a cover.