Devon County Show 2017

On Thursday 18th May, we went to the Devon County Show at Westpoint, Exeter. I have finally had the opportunity to go through all the photos I took and get them edited and saved. I won’t show them all here because there are too many, but it will still be a picture-rich post!

There was a huge display of poppies, a tribute to the 11,000 Devon men and women who lost their lives in the First World War. They were made of any material as long as it was not paper, and most of them were knitted or crocheted, and there were some made of lace and felt.

This wreath was made from recycled Coca-cola tins!

I learnt something new – that purple poppies are a memorial to all the animals that were killed in the course of war. Purple poppies featured in this display, too.

A prize-winning display at the show was put on by Lifton Farm Shop, in the theme of Shaun the Sheep. All the sheep’s bodies were made of cauliflowers! The display was so imaginative and fun, and everyone loved it.

The house was covered with potatoes (with ones with pink skins around the windows) and the garden path was made of onions.

There were some fun sheep – here is one sunbathing in a deckchair. Note the sun cream and cocktail close at hand.

Here’s the farmer. I like the sign at the bottom!

Sheep shearing.

Here are some ladies, knitting and having their hair done.

Mutton dressed as lamb.

There was the usual fantastic display of floral arrangements, on different themes, one of which was “pas de deux,” a ballet theme.

I loved this “triptych” of calla lilies. It won a prize.

A large display of pitcher plants and other carnivorous plants. I have always found these very exotic and fascinating.

We found a textile art student from Bicton College, making felt, and she allowed me to photograph her project book. Here are a couple of pages.

There was quite a large display of lace making.

In the spinners’ booth there was a good display.

My hubby learning how to hand-spin (not!).

The Bonsire man was there again, and I always promise to post photos of his work on my blog! He makes the most exquisite miniature bonsai trees from wire.

The usual very high standard of work in the blacksmithing booth.

This intriguing piece had different leaves around the base – ivy, oak, hazel.

It always amazes me that such fluid, organic shapes can be formed from a material so hard and unyielding.

While wandering around, we came across this eatery with very pretty Indian parasols. I’d love to have bought one but they were too expensive!

The Queen Bee herself, at the entrance to the beekeeping tent.

Some natural honeycomb. This is what the bees will make without a frame in the hive.

I bought some beeswax polish and some very special heather honey.

Here is a prize-winning hand-painted plate.

Judging the eggs! Not sure what makes one egg better than another!

There was even a display of posh jellies being judged.

A fascinating spherical sculpture made entirely of horseshoes.

The usual displays of small animals.

This year we didn’t get to see many of the farm animals, but we did visit the angora goats. Look at that billie’s magnificent horns, and the kids were really cute.

The Corrymore goats always carry off prizes. I always want to visit that tent, because I can stock up on new Corrymore socks, made from their fleece. They are quite simply the best socks I’ve ever had – I have a whole drawer-full and never wear anything else! They come in lots of colours (and different styles too) and they are very hard wearing (I’ve had my original ones for years and years), and wash very well, and they are cool in summer and warm in winter.

As we were leaving, we were held up by what seemed to be an interminable parade of tractors of all vintages. They varied a lot in size and complexity. One thing they all had in common was that they smelt! The smell of exhaust became very unpleasant after a while, and I was glad of a lull in the cavalcade so that we could cross over and return to the car. You can see from this photo that it had started to rain by this point. The rest of the day was fine and sunny, but we did get a bit wet towards the end, and my buggy battery started giving out so my poor hubby had to keep pushing me as we limped our way back to the car!

I did some great shopping, and we had a very good salad lunch, but some aspects were disappointing because we didn’t manage to see many animals, and both the carriage driving and the show jumping were just finishing when we arrived on the scene, which was a bit of a shame. It’s the only time one ever gets to see this sort of thing, and the horses and riders are always so beautifully turned out, and it’s lovely to see anything done really well.

My hubby said he probably wouldn’t bother to go to the show if I didn’t love it so much (although he always enjoys it while we are there) – he is very good to me, taking me to nice places and giving me treats! He gets the buggy and the wheelchair in and out of the car and pushes me when necessary. I would be well and truly stuck at home if it wasn’t for him! The following day was his birthday, and I think he had a nice birthday treat at the show.

We finished the day with my hubby’s brothers and their wives, having a well-earned slap-up Chinese takeaway. Delicious! Altogether, a great day out, as always. The County Show is something I always try not to miss!

Remembrance 2014

Today we remember the fallen of the two World Wars and all the other conflicts over the past century. This year is particularly special because it marks the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, which was hoped to be “the war to end all wars.” Those of us who enjoy a life of freedom and democracy should always be grateful for the sacrifice of our servicemen who gave their all to that end.

Here is the remembrance page I made in my art journal.

Let us also remember those who will live the rest of their lives suffering from the wounds they received, serving their country, and their families, and the families of those who did not return.

My grandfather, who served with the Royal Engineers in World War I. He had two very close friends and they all volunteered together. Their plan was to start their own engineering works after the war, but my grandfather was the only one to survive.

We will remember them

Art Journal Page–Remembrance

My latest art journal page is for Remembrance Day. It seems unbelievable that we are only two years from the centenary of the beginning of the First World War; I remember seeing on TV a few years ago, a programme entitled “The Last Tommy,” about the very last survivor of that terrible conflict, which was supposed to be “The War to end all wars…” The veterans of World War Two are now becoming very elderly, and soon that war will pass from living memory, too.

The conflicts go on, of course. At this time of year we remember not only those who died in the two World Wars, but also all of our armed forces fighting around the world, especially at present in Afghanistan. Our nephew returned home from there just a couple of weeks ago, and we are very glad to have him back, safe and sound, but this is not the case for far too many. Our hearts go out to the families of those who will never return, and for those whose lives are forever changed because of devastating injury.

Last year I designed a new service sheet for Remembrance Sunday for our church:

I have based my journal page loosely on this design.

When I did my Tyger Tyger page, I was disappointed at first that some of the green ink had bled through to the next page, but on balance I was glad, because it formed the basis for the left-hand page of my Remembrance layout.

Here is the page with the background text mapped out in pencil.

These words were then filled in with brown water-based pens.

Here is a detail of this text.

I knew this would obviously be much too strong to be a background, so an acrylic glaze was required, to tone it right down. Before I could apply this, though, the water-based ink had to be sealed to prevent it running when the paint was applied. I recently acquired this spray sealant:

It seems to work very well, but the only problem is, it stinks. Big time! You are supposed to use it in a well-ventilated space, but it’s far too cold to open all the windows at the moment! I left my ARTHaven door open to get rid of it, and then the whole house stank of it. Ah well. One must suffer for one’s art…

Here is my pizza box spray booth, with scrap paper under the pages of the art journal that I’m working on, to protect what is underneath.

Here are the materials for the acrylic glaze.

I used a mixture of brown and white acrylic paint, with some acrylic polymer to thin it to a glaze. This is what it is like mixed.

Here is the first layer of the glaze applied.

I painted it on, and blotted it off with kitchen paper several times, until I was happy with it. The text was still too obvious in the centre where I wanted to put a picture, so a lighter layer needed to be applied.

You can see that the text is still visible, even through several layers, but it is much more subtle, and forms a varied and more interesting background than just leaving it plain. I dried this off with my heat gun. I did this for each stage of the project from now on – mixed media is great, but the most frustrating thing is waiting for each stage to dry before you can move on, so I bless the inventor of the heat gun!

Now I was ready for the interesting part: painting the details. First I painted some war graves and a Spitfire.

I deliberately kept these fairly muted, but ultimately the gravestones were a little too muted and there wasn’t a lot I could do about that after I’d added the text.

To complete the right-hand page I painted a silhouette of a lone Tommy in a blighted landscape with some barbed wire. Again, I kept the palette muted, to suggest an old black and white photograph.

Now came my first disaster! I wanted to splatter some red onto the foreground to represent the blood shed in the great world conflicts, and thought my best bet was Barn Door Distress re-inker. I should have remembered from the last page that what soaked through the page was Distress Ink! I spattered it on OK but it took an absolute age to dry, despite several sessions of blasting it with my heat gun, and it turned out quite translucent and not that bright – not the effect I was after. Worse still, when I turned back to my Tyger page, the wretched stuff had bled through, despite my having sprayed the Remembrance page with sealant!! All is not lost, though, because I think I can touch it up and cover up the red spots. Now I’ve managed to get a nice random spattered effect, I can go over the pale red spots with acrylic paint. (Looking back at the Tyger page subsequently, I think I’m going to leave the red spots because I find I’ve grown to like them!!)

I also managed to get a couple of somewhat linear spatters which I didn’t like, but these could be covered up with the barbed wire to be drawn in the foreground – these marks now determine the course of the barbed wire, which was going to be pretty random anyway. There aren’t usually mistakes with mixed media and art journals – merely challenges which can be covered over or incorporated into the ongoing design! However, from now on, I think I am going to miss alternate pages of this album so that any bleed-through won’t be a problem, and glue these blank pages together. (That way, I may actually be able to fill the book in my lifetime, too!)

In this picture, the darker spots are the ink which had not yet properly dried.

The next stage was to add the border. The famous words are “The Ode of Remembrance” from a poem by Laurence Binyon, entitled “For the Fallen,” first published in The Times in September 1914; it is read each Remembrance Sunday after the Last Post and the two-minute silence.

The gaps in the text, and the space in the top left-hand corner, are where painted poppies would be inserted.

Here is a detailed shot of the journaling and the foreground barbed wire. I wrote it first with a red water-based marker, and then went round each letter with my size 08 permanent black marker that I use for zentangle drawing. These colours mirror the colour of the poppies and their centres.

To complete the page, I cut some poppy shapes with Sheba, my Black Cat Cougar cutting machine (see my sidebar for details of this machine). To see how I made these flowers, please see my blog post here.I designed the poppies and leaves in Inkscape. This is a bitmap image of the svg file which is available for free download from my Skydrive. I cut two sizes of the poppy and leaf pieces.

I saved an image of the outline of the pieces as I wanted them to appear on the page, and printed this out. I cut it out and laid on the page to show where the various pieces would go.

I drew some small poppies using water-based marker pens to fill the gaps in the text. The paper poppies, with their leaves, were then adhered in place on the page, according to the arrangement of the printed piece. This is the finished page.