Tag: lifestyle blog

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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Another Embroidered bumble bee

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs

Hello my friends!!

I hope the week treated you well!

This week I thought I’d post a new embroidery that I’ve been working on. Looking back at the bumble bee photographs (that I posted last week!) I decided to embroider one similar to my the needlework bee (that I posted last year).

A short but delicate art post this week…I’ve embroidered a new bumblebee! Very much like the one I created last year but the wings are in a different position.

As always I started by drawing the shapes onto calico and then filled them in with the closest coloured threads I had. For the bee I like to start in the centre of the body and work out in layers, using one stand of embroidery floss (on the smallest needle imaginable – its like a hair!).

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Bumblebee Photography 2022

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography4 Comments

Hello wonderful friends!

I’ve spent a few days outside watching these bugs and generally being at one with nature and I wanted to take you with me, so for this weeks post I’ve put together a little collection of bumble bee related photographs that I’ve taken this summer.

Bees have always been super special to me  – I try my hardest to take care of them and grow as many flowers as possible. They are so very clever and do so much good for our planet, that we really should be doing more to create spaces for them.

In a bid to do more for nature I decided to try and grow my own wildflower ‘meadow’ along the garden fence. I mixed all different seeds together and liberally sprinkled them into the trench – there were a lot of cornflowers (which are my favourite) that were multicoloured as well as nasturtiums, marigolds, californian poppies and various herbs like lavender, sage and rosemary.

As a lot of these plants are annuals I think I might try to strategically plant them next year as the corn flowers are so abundant that they’re cutting off the light to some of the smaller plants at the bottom.

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Embroidered Large white butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs

Hello friends! I hope you had a good week!

I’ve got a new butterfly embroidery to share this week. I’m really happy with the Large White photograph (that I posted last week!) I particularly love this type of butterfly – they’re so beautiful but because the caterpillars eat cabbages humans consider them a pest.

So I decided to embroider one similar to my Holly Blue.

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Embroidered Holly Blue butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs2 Comments

Hello my friends!

This week I thought post something new that I’ve been working on…as you know I love needlework and I embroidered bees before and wanted to experiment to see if I could create a 3-d butterfly.

When I saw the Holly Blue butterfly and was able to take some photographs of it (that I posted last week!) I knew that I wanted to create a piece of art about this insect.

So I decided to embroider one similar to the bee I did last year, but instead of being a flat piece I want to try and make it a little more three dimensional. 

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Holly Blue Butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hello friends!

This weeks post is a butterfly centred photography collection.

I recently got the chance to photograph a new butterfly, I’ve never seen one of these before and I wanted to share it with you. Its been flying around for a couple of weeks but has never landed long enough for me to photograph. Its a Celastrina argiolus butterfly or Holly Blue, and it was so tiny!

Isn’t he gorgeous – it is male the females have more black on the upper wings.

The undersides of the wings are just as beautiful, originally when I saw it I thought the little guy was probably a Common Blue but the small black spots on the wing undersides distinguish the two types of butterfly.

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A Day by the Ocean

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hello friends,

There is something timeless and soothing about the sea isn’t there? This week I wanted to share some snaps from a summer days spent at Perranporth Beach in Cornwall and I wanted to take you with me! 

You may or may not have know but Wednesday 8th June was World Ocean Day so with that in mind I hope you enjoy this seaside themed post.

It’s hard to believe that this picturesque photo of the sea lapping against the sand was taken in the UK, but it was (in fact it’s a beach in Cornwall). The Cornish light is something I truly love when it comes to creating art or taking photographs!

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Queen Elizabeth II sketch

On By ArtyMissKIn Art2 Comments

In the UK and commonwealth this weekend we are celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her 70 years on the throne! The bunting is up, the flags are out and we the British are going to have picnics and street parties outdoors…even if its pouring with rain!

So I thought that on this the Platinum Jubilee weekend I would actually post the sketch I’ve completed of Queen Elizabeth II, its been lovely being drawing in the garden the breeze has been lovely. I had a few stamps and thought it would be fun to draw the side portrait that adorns British coins and stamps.

Although I love sitting with a set of pencils and trying to capture a persons image on paper, I’ve never actually posted any of them online because I’m A.) not very good at realistically drawing humans and B.) I have a phobia that people who view my sketches won’t be able to immediately guess who the portrait is of (which is mortifying!).

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Advice from a Caterpillar

On By ArtyMissKIn Art3 Comments

Hello friends,

I hope you’ve had a good week so far! This weeks post a few pieces of art about about one of my all time favourite book characters – the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland! And I thought maybe it might be fun to post some pages from my sketchbook.

And while the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations are in black and white in the book the Caterpillar is described as being blue (and precisely 3 inches tall) so I thought that tall my caterpillar related art should use blue tones. Theres a couple of cute drawings, some hand lettering art of “How Doth the Little Crocodile” and a brilliant Terry Pratchett quote!

So, enjoy some blue toned caterpillar/mushroom related art…I hope you like it.

This caterpillar is based more from the 2010 film directed by Tim Burton, I think the movie Absalom (although in the books he doesn’t have a name and is just referred to as the Caterpillar) is much more chilled out than the 1951 Disney version – who in my opinion was far too much of a diva and he yells at Alice far too often ! It’s drawn with crayons which are far harder to control than I remember them being as a kid!

“How Doth the Little Crocodile” is a poem by Lewis Carroll which appears in his 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice recites it while attempting to recall “Against Idleness and Mischief” by Isaac Watts. It’s such a brilliant little poem and has always been one that stuck in my head.

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