VERY Special Delivery!

THE MOST 'beautiful' & precious postcard I have ever received - from my very dear and utterly talented friend Alan! I love the way the stamps and graphic marks all become one with the painting; the type just catching the edge of the dogs ear and somehow the bright colours of the stamps work beautifully alongside the muted colour palette adding to the sense of heat. You can see more of Alan's wonderful work and read about his travels here alanbaggs.wordpress.com

Autumn…my favourite time of year!

I love the Autumn colours, the low light and long shadows, the smell of wood and the winds sense of freedom and liberation. Not time for too many words this month, too many pressing deadlines - so need to hibernate for a while and work, work work! Enjoy Autumn and all that it brings.

Tales from the Wychwood Festival...

We arrived and the sun was shining, 

not a rain cloud in sight...

…but still the Never Ever girl was unimpressed!

The children in the audience (and some adults too)
made triumphant animal noises
to try and entice her to open her eyes…

but NOPE she just marched straight on…

and on…

and on...

after a near miss with a dragon…

…we left her to ponder….

whilst we all got creative……

and made pigs fly…

…and dragons snap!

And here's a top tip for keeping your dragon under control at festivals…sit on him!

I want to say a HUGE Thank you to Liza & Brad and their son (who was the perfect dragon) for not only all their help & support on the day but also for making me another AMAZING 'Never Ever' puppet! You can see how Liza made this wonderful Dragon on her blog here http://lizajsmith.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/how-to-make-dragon.html

Also a BIG thank you to Waterstones for inviting me once again and looking after me so well! And to Annie and Sue at Child's Play for all their help.

A little work in progress...

A alternative to Spring cleaning...

A very unrabbity day at Southroom school...lots of paint, lots of colours, lots of mess and lots of dizzy children after much straw blowing!

Spring has finally sprung!

At last Spring has finally sprung...the flooded fields are slowly drying up, the birds are busy nesting in the garden, crocuses are out and we even have a few tadpoles in the pond, which I'm hoping my cat doesn't spot as he's prone to a bit of fishing! So the dark, cold wet Winter is behind us and hopefully many blue skies lay ahead.

Happy World Book Day!

I had a lovely World Book Day today with children at Bishop's Cannings School, where we created a very...very...very...very...VERY...VERY long book in reception class, Yr1 and Yr2.

We used the landscapes from the 'Never Ever' book as a giant backdrop, then children could either colour a character from the book or create their own imaginary creature, sticking it along the journey to create a colouful train following the main girl character, who of course, was still oblivious to all that was happening around her!

We used all different eyes, various shapes and sizes to give each character it's own individuality and a sense of their mood. Eyes are so expressive and I wanted to try and show the children what a difference you can make to a character just by changing the eyes and nothing else.

Here are some of their wonderful works of art...Starting with Year 2...

...and Year 1...

...and Reception...

So a VERY big thank you to all the staff, children and parents at Bishops Cannings School for making me feel so welcome, dispelling my bad memories of school dinners by giving me the most delicious lunch, and for truly celebrating World Book Day in a very creative and big bookie way!

A few colourful tweets...

It's sometimes difficult looking for something to say...

So...here's just a little Friday tweet!