New Ticker Tape Parade Design and more free worldwide shipping

Welcome to my latest design "Ticker Tape Parade", so cleverly named by my Facebook friend Beryl! After asking for help naming this design Beryl came up with "Ticker Tape" which so perfectly captures not only the ebullient and festive New Year's Eve/somewhat retro spirit of the design but also the sense of traffic lights and busy sidewalks that also spring to my mind.
THANKS BERYL!!

I originally created this in design in gouache on paper before scanning, cleaning in Photoshop and then sizing and formatting for the items you see pictured here. I also made it into an allover repeating pattern for wallpaper and fabric too - doing the repeat is always fun for me as it has the aspect of puzzle piecing to fit the design side to side and top to bottom so there are no breaks or obvious joins in a length of fabric.

I love creating geometric designs like this as they are very meditative in their execution, I plan out the design in pencil line first and then enjoy the process of 'colouring in' the shapes just like a paint by numbers canvas - my illustration paintings/designs created in watercolour require constant mindfulness, and as such they can be quite satisfyingly tiring and time consuming to paint.

I have populated my online shops with Ticker Tape on all manner of items including, but certainly not limited to:

At my Society6 shop
where there is free worldwide shipping until Sunday February 23rd

As you can see I now have wall clocks available at my Society6 shop too

and from my CafePress shop:

"Ticker Tape Parade" is also available as fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper and wall decals from my

SPOONFLOWER SHOP

...as a print on wood from my PRINTS ON WOOD SHOP

...and as signed archival prints from my ETSY SHOP

Next on the blog in terms of CAKE - my favourite thing - will be Honey Cakes for Saint David's Day March 1st and then Irish Marmalade Cake for Saint Patrick's Day - stay tuned!

Happy Earth Day 2012!

Happy Earth Day one and all!!

Here are links to some organizations I think are doing a wonderful job to help our lovely planet. Who would you add to this list?

SLOW FOOD

EARTH HOUR

MAINE ORGANIC FARMERS and GARDENERS ASSOCIATION

PRINCE CHARLES - yes he's been an avid environmentalist since the early 70's - this link is to just one of his projects.

A new design for Green Hive Honey Farm.

Green Hive Honey Farm of Camden, Maine found some lovely 1lb Muth bottles for their delicious raw honey and asked me to redesign the original label (see a few pics down) to suit this new silhouette - an arched label for the front and a narrow label to hold the ribbon around the neck.

The neck label layout and a mock up of the finished (unfilled) bottle

 I printed up 120 of each of the new labels and I love how they look all laid out together like this - each of the arched labels were cut out by hand - always more service than seems necessary!!

 Seeing the design laid out like that above gave me the idea to do a textile design for my Spoonflower print-on-demand store and below you see the result of this idea.

 

 Above is the original label and below a print I created from all the component motifs which is available as an archival print from my Etsy shop.

These lovely Muth jars filled with wonderful Green Hive Raw Honey is available from Fresh Off the Farm in Camden.

Mystical golden beauty abounds!!

"The Silent Arrival of Memory"

Isn't this truly amazing?, and it ISN'T Photoshopped. That really is a golden ball floating, at average eye level, above a mystical temple in a land far, far away....
This is a detail photograph of James' latest obelisk sculpture, which can be seen below in it's full and awesome glory. It is part of a series of "story" sculptures that he has been working on for the last two years. Using the technology of microchips, electromagnets and rare earth magnets he has floated this golden sphere above the 24 carat gold leafed main body of the sarcophagus/small temple below.
The obelisk base has subtle relief surface sculpture and a stairway leading to a mysterious entrance beautifully painted in a chalk blue that fades towards the top of the column. James says that he likes to imply mystery in these sculptures, relying on the observer to imagine themselves into this mystical world.
IT IS A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD and I feel so honoured to be able to gaze in wonder at this everyday and share it with you through my blog!

Belfast Maine 4th Annual Poetry and Art Festival!!

BEGUINAGE REVISITED

by Janet Shea

It is a thirteenth-century beguinage,
a community of holy women--mothers, aunts,
ancestral sisters--tending the sick.
Mary of Oignies, Juliana, Marguerite
shuttle trays of soft food, medicinal tea,
warm milk to the many suffering
souls to be cared for: Old women, children
on cots, restless babies in cribs.

.

Every so often a sister stops to rest, leans

against the banister or door jamb. Mary

of Oignies, weakened by the marks of stigmata,

wipes the back of her hand across her forehead,

swipes a bleeding palm down the sides of her apron.

.

Local friars, arrayed in hooded burlap,

sit on the porch with neighborhood

men in plaid shirts, caps swinging between their knees

all awaiting instructions from the women. The men

were summoned to ward off encroaching disaster,

invasion, a possible flood. Already their boots

are slick with mud. Already the wind howls, rain

pelts the roof, fir trees like old bones creak

in the woods out back.

.

Bonded in time and place, tired of waiting,

the men convene in the cellar. They hammer,

check beams and joists, sandbag the foundation, trace

strategic escape routes on a torn and crinkled

map, vigilant for marauders, heretics, petty thieves.

.

Later, in my grandmother's Victorian, a labyrinth

of hallways and stairs, sisters . . . Patricia,

Virginia, Mary Louise . . . gather at Grammy's

oak table for supper. Overhead, mothers and aunts,

in rooms pungent with the aroma of lavender

and oil-of-wintergreen, settle in bed, side

rails secured, night lights aglow, the Sacred

Heart of Jesus, consoling on the wall. Nearby

children and babies breathe easy, exhaling

in sleep a fragrance of warm milk and honey.

The winds out back coo like a covey of doves,

the rain a soft patter on glass.

.

After supper the eldest cousin retreats

to the pantry, a sudden tumble of disarray.

She puzzles among the monochromatic cache

of mother vessels, dried up and cracked,

chooses a familiar blue bowl, its vanilla

rim chipped, and fills it with pudding.

.

"I enter the circle of holy ones,"

she whispers, returning to the table,

the ancient vessel steady in her hands.

Sisters and cousins, we welcome her with song,

remember in silence the women before us.

.

We tell stories, pass the bowl of abundance,

feast in the mounds of meringue.

White peaks

whipped firm,

but not stiff.

Above is a poem by my good and delicious friend, Janet Shea, (not a rellie!) which I illustrated with the painting you see at the top of this posting. I decided to make the painting into a shrine to the Sacred Everyday (Sacra Quotidianus) and took some pictorial elements from Janet lovely poem to celebrate this concept. Janet and I decided to call ourselves 'The Two Sheas' and I was so proud to have the painting hung in a gallery here in Belfast with Janet reading the poem aloud to a breathless audience....that was for the very first Belfast Poetry and Art Festival in 2005. With the tireless efforts of Elizabeth Garber, our first Poet Laureate in Belfast and a wordsmith whose poems have been featured not once but thrice on the Garrison Keillor early morning radio spot on NPR, along with the efforts of many other local poets and artists this Festival is now in it's fourth season...do check out the website (see info in righthand column and click there to link to their site) for a listing of venues where this year's poetry will be read and art seen.

The two Angel pictures are from the Belfast Graveyard and I thought they were appropriate to combine with this particular posting. For info on Beguinage click on the title of the poem.

Thank you Janet, you little sweetpea!!!

Exhausted but elated!!

Well James and I managed to place his three metal sculptures at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and here are pics of them in situ as I promised in my last posting. The locations of the three pieces are really great thanks to the foresight of Suzette McAvoy, the show's curator. Have to admit we nearly gave ourselves hernia's placing "Leap, run, leaping" (top photograph) atop the grassy knoll and we were absolutely knackered by the time we were finished, but all is worthwhile in the name of art.........isn't it??? Hope you get the chance to see the sculptures at the gardens, their colours work really well in their respective sites...the red is amazing against the green vegetation, James choose the colour which is the exact complementary opposite wavelength of the green leaves to make the sculptures "jazz" and the blue of "Girl Facing North East" (bottom photograph) is a beautiful complement to the lovely light mushroom of the building trim. Well done James! Now go take a nap!