Winter World Turtle

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, World Turtles2 Comments

Hello my friends!!

I said I’d started this painting and here it is!

This weeks post is as the name suggests a Winter World Turtle – and the third World Turtle illustration.

As this one is winter themed I wanted the colours to reflect the time of year – the snow is painted using white ink and acrylic with a very pale ice blue watercolour. There are even some tiny icicles hanging from the turtles’ shell.

I wanted the trees to reflect the time of year so I made a few of them flop to the side – as if they’re weighed down by heavy snow! Its funny we don’t really get ‘proper’ snow where I live, if we’re lucky winter may grace the area with a very light dusting, but that’s it and its always such a disappointment!!

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Festive hand lettering

On By ArtyMissKIn Art3 Comments

Hello friends,

Happy December!

As we’ve finally entered the festive month I though I’d share some Christmas Carol themed calligraphy art!

Something I’m trying to do is create a collection of festive themed art – I have a lot of art up around the house and have decided it might be fun to create winter pieces to go in each frame for the holiday season.

Two of my most favourite carols are O come all ye faithful and The Holly and the Ivy, which I’ve turned into A4 sized pieces in traditional festive colours. 

I love Christmas music – not necessarily the pop stuff, but the old school carols and folk stuff and having it on in the background while I’m making last minute gifts or decorations is always lovely, ideally I really like to have festive music playing in the background as soon as it hits December 1st.

Anyway that it for this week! I hope you like my festive hand lettering. I’m thinking of maybe trying some tutorials for calligraphy next year. Would anyone be interested in that?

And as always thanks for reading and happy December.

Old Forest Bench {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hello friends!

Seeing as its the last Friday before the festive month I thought I’d post a little autumn forest one frame this week, I love this old wooden bench and how its slowly being reclaimed by the nature and I wanted to share it with you. 

When I took this photo it was wet, it was muddy and this old bench still sat there, beautiful as ever waiting for passers by to sit on it, surrounded by a sea of fallen leaves. Really rather poetic when you think about it.

So, that’s it for this week! I always think part of the fun of these one frame posts is really focusing on narrowing it down to a single image. As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Autumn World Turtle

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, World Turtles

Hello friends! 

A couple of weeks have slipped by without me posting – they flashed pass so quickly its unreal (I don’t know how some weeks can disappear in the blink of an eye and yet some days can last a lifetime)

This week I wanted to share a new painting. Back in July I posted the finished watercolour painting of ‘A World Turtle’ and thought, why not do a turtle for each season!

As its autumn I wanted the colours of the foliage to reflect the time of year – November here is a bit nippy but the trees are beautiful as they change colour. I’ve even tried to include little piles of leaves that have been swept together – even if they look like bushes!

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Embroidered Gatekeeper butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs7 Comments

Hello my friends!!

This week I thought I’d post a new embroidery that I’ve been working on.

Looking back at the Gatekeeper butterfly photographs (that I posted last week!) I decided to embroider one similar to my other needlework butterflies – I’m developing quite a collection of needlework bugs/insects.

As always I started by roughly drawing four wing and body shapes onto calico and then filled them in with the closest coloured threads I had. I like to block colour first using two stands of embroidery floss and then blend using a single strand (on the smallest needle imaginable – its like a hair!)

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Gatekeeper Butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hello my friends!

Nature is magical isn’t it?!

This weeks post is a new butterfly centred photography collection. Its all about the Pyronia tithonus butterfly or Gatekeeper and over a couple of (very) early mornings it was most courteous and posed for a few pictures. I love insects and I wanted to take you with me into the early morning world of butterflies!

I loved watching the different flowers appear during #nomowmay (I even got up one morning to a huge patch of Ox Eye daisies) that I thought ‘that was fun, let’s let the unwanted plants do their own thing*.’

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Old Glastonbury Abbey

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hello friends!

This week I wanted to share some recent snaps from a day spent at Glastonbury Abbey and I wanted to take you with me – I don’t usually take many shots of buildings and things but it made a really nice change! The abbey holds mythical status as the earliest Christian church in Britain and is the possible burial place of King Arthur.

The abbey itself is dog friendly, has multitude of events held within it and can even hold weddings!

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Ladybird beetle {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hello my friends!

I hope life has treated you well this week.

I thought I’d share a new one frame this week as I’ve been going through my recent Ladybird beetle snaps, and can’t quite believe I have taken so many photos of them!

This one is a two spot ladybird up close and personal on a leaf. I love how the colours are so vibrant and I can’t believe how shiny the little bug is! Even the veins and patterns on the leaf look good. I really love how the left hand side of the leaf is slightly less defined with all focus on the ladybird and the leaf in front of it.

There are about 5,000 different species of ladybirds in the world. These much little beauties are also known as lady beetles or ladybugs because as suggested they’re beetles not bugs.

The natural light was so good that this image taken with my Nikon in macro mode, needed no post production.

Well that’s it, one ladybird photo for this post. I hope you like it. Do you have a favourite bug? They are wonderful little creatures that run our world and make no fuss whatsoever. As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Embroidered ladybird beetles

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs

Hello friends!

This week I thought I’d post about some new needlework pieces that I’ve been creating on. Last year I fell so in love with bumble bees that I embroidered one (in fact I posted a new bumble bee embroidery only a few weeks ago!) and thought that as I’ve been captivated by the ladybird beetles why not sew one and add it to my ever expanding collection of insect needlework (in the end I created two!)

Usually I start all my needlework pieces the same way – by roughly drawing onto the calico and then its all sewn free hand using a single strand of coloured floss at a time onto a hoop and then sewn in teeny tiny little stitches. I’ve tried to sew them to look as round as possible.

I’m really pleased with these little ladybirds each piece is about an inch across so they’re very small, due to their size each one only took about 30 minutes to create from start to finish and its quite nice to have a quick and easy craft on hand for when the nights begin to get longer.

Up close the beetles are tiny – needlework is so soothing and I find its a really good stress/anxiety reliever.

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Ladybird beetle

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hello friends!

This week I wanted to share some recent snaps of my new obsession -Ladybird beetles!! I’ve spent a few days outside watching these bugs and I wanted to take you with me.

Ladybird beetles, one of those little creatures that just gets on with life and never makes any fuss. I noticed a lot more them this year, which is always nice. Obviously they are a great aphid eater which helps the garden no end but they’re also incredibly beautiful.

Enjoy some warm and happy summer colours and plenty of ladybirds…

I let the garden re-wild a little bit for #nomowmay – it didn’t take long for nettles to overtake and the ladybirds were so abundant I ended up buying a feeder to make sure the little guys had enough to eat.

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