Midsummer Faery Collective

Phew!  Finally finished the lines and inking on this one.  Of course I was ideally planning for this stage to be finished by last week but mumble mumble...

Its a sort of study of the wildlife in the fields and hedgerows of the British countryside.  Well I guess it could be anywhere, really!  It includes everything(well, just about) that means 'summertime' to me - buzzing of bees and hoverflies, honeysuckle and dog roses, sparrow invasions, wildflower and wild fruits..yes, I think I managed to squeeze just about everything in!

The plan was to try and make it my most detailed piece yet, in a sort of collage or tapestry style.  Not sure if some of the placing makes sense, and there plenty of mistakes that need to be repaired, but oh well.
Better start the painting, there are already new ideas in my head I want to get onto paper.  Can't they just wait until i've finished?

(Full size not coming up for some reason - please view full size here)

Happy Holidays Part 2

Continuing on from the last post:

Some shots of the North Yorkshire Moors from the train.  It still looked very much autumnal!

We arrive in Whitby!

Whitby harbour was full of interesting, colourful boats, including this cool pirate ship!

There was an endless labyrinth of cobbled streets, full of colourful shops selling all sorts of goodies.  A phenomena we noticed with the towns down here is that there are dog bowls full of water around every corner.  I guess they remembered that dogs need refreshments from time to time too!

There was a fab folk musician with a dancing hag down one of the alleys, singing a song that I believe had something to do with snakes...i'll get a link to a clip of them both in action soon!

As we made our way up to Whitby Abbey, we passed first through a small graveyard..

...and spotted this humorous fellow who was perched on the church just outside the abbey.

The Abbey of course!  This is supposed to be one of the locations that inspired Bram Stoker when writing Dracula.

Some close ups of the textures on the Abbey.  I see skulls on the stone in the second picture...

Alas it is all too soon before the day is over, and we must return by the last train back to Pickering.  This one was a diesel...

A lovely end to the evening.  Tomorrow we head home, and stop off in York for a couple of hours...

Some shots of York Minster.  The outside of the building was just swarming with grotesques!

So there we go.  If you wish to see more shots, visit my Flickr album here

Happy Holidays!

We have just returned from a relaxing break in the lovely little market town of Pickering, North Yorkshire.  Actually, perhaps relaxing isn't quite the word i'm looking for!  We were rather rushed off our feet, what with long walks through cobbled streets, scouring antique and junk shops for small treasures; touring the Beck isle museum, filled with nostalgic sets of times gone by; exciting steam train rides to Whitby to see the castle and the occasional tea break in Elizabeth Bothams Tea Rooms.
We even had a quick chance to spend a couple of hours trotting around York between our bus and train journey home.

Naturally there was an overwhelming amount of photographs taken, though perhaps not as many as I would have liked of the pubs, museums and shops visited and people that we met!
The weather hasn't been the greatest anywhere recently, and spring definitely a late starter this year,  and we were still very much stuck with that wintery feeling here too - but we did get some sun in the afternoon on the Whitby visit, which could have almost have passed for a summers day.  The rain and snow managed to hold off the whole time we were there, so all in all it wasn't too shabby!

We start in a graveyard.  This is because, for some reason, any trip always seems to start with a visit to the local church!  I just liked the look of this  little house...

I could have put in a shot of the church interior, but these wall murals were far more fascinating!

There was a beautiful little set up inside too; i'm not sure exactly what this is about as i'm not religious - but I know that bread was probably well past its sell by date!

I was quite taken with this old industrial building.

So Beatrix Potter!

I got a bit obsessed with this old station house...

Just realized I didn't have any shots of streets in Pickering...

Here's the steam train pulling into Pickering station!

Here is a happy looking man on the train!  Who wouldn't be?

More images to continue on next post...