Fun with blue.

 Over the last couple of days I've been making the most of the sunlight! A while back I bought the chemicals to make blue prints, until now I haven't really had the chance to do them. After all the rain we've had I wanted to do something that really took advantage of the sun and this seemed the perfect project :-)

 After a bit of faffing mixing the chemicals and trying to keep the curtains closed to make a dark room. I was amazed at how quick the rest of it went, the reaction is instantaneous and almost like magic blink and you miss it. I was thrilled with the detail too, some things you could almost be mistaken for the real thing.

 My hoards of bits and bobs came in handy, see it was worth hanging on to them! I even tried a couple of koda trace designs to see how they would work.

So now I have 6 lovely prints that I will work into with stitch and maybe add some conventional printing. I'm going to have plenty to keep me going and I'm looking forward to having an experiment with them. I'm also thinking of other ways I could transfer images and what sort of things I'd like to print this way.

Flame on the Tyne

 Last night was a great night out on the Newcastle quayside. Although there was always the threat of a heavy rain storm, it didn't deter the hundreds if not thousands of people who came down to see the Olympic torch. We got a great spot on the junction of Side and the Quayside and it was fantastic to get a picture of the torch and it's bearer.

 After travelling across the Swing bridge the torch made its way to the Tyne bridge and Bear Grylls took it down the special zip wire to the Baltic square. If you look really carefully you can just make out the torch before Bear leapt and whizzed down. It was a fantastic event and everyone had a great time and the atmosphere was amazing. Well worth braving the wet and cold to see it.

On our way home we spotted this mural on the side of the Ship Inn in Byker, I thought it was great and loved the funny people and the style, I particularly like the dog with it's huge feet. Have a look out for it if you're ever down that way.

Jubilee, folk music and headstones.

 For the Jubilee weekend we went to visit the in-laws across in the Lakes and went to the Ireby folk festival. Our time there was very refreshing and a fantastic break away, although the weather could have been better. The folk festival was great and we thoroughly enjoyed "Time gentlemen please featuring the Demon barber road show", full of street and Irish dancing, it got the feet tapping. Another highlight for me was "Rob Heron and the tea pad orchestra" whose performance kept you dancing and singing with an eclectic mix of 30's swing, blues and gypsy jazz, I'll be putting "She don't like fish" on my ipod!

On the best day weather wise we went for a gorgeous walk up St John's in the vale, a walk that had a bit of everything a gently flowing river, a wood, a climb up to a fantastic view and an old church at the end. I spotted this lovely fern still all curled up tight and thought it had beautiful form almost heart shaped, with a little crown snuggled inside.

At the end of the walk we got to a lovely old church with a higgledy piggledy grave yard, I know it sounds a bit strange but I quite like looking at the inscriptions on headstones and marvelling at the care that has been taken to carve the names of loved ones. Some of the fonts are beautiful, I liked this one in particular in St John's in the vale. The coat of arms was intricate and gave the sense that this was an important member of the community at one time. There was a beautiful lace hydrangea growing round the church door too that I took a snap of before the camera battery ran out!

So lots of things to inform and inspire and I have realised I have an ever growing fascination with old handwriting and fonts and I'm introducing them into my work more and more.