Happy, Happy, Happy Mad Tea Party Day

Welcome, welcome, welcome dear friends, old and new.

Isn't it exciting?

We've been having the most joyous time tea-partying madly today, the March Hare, the Maddest Hatter, and I.

I'm so glad that you stopped by, would you like a fairy cake?

Baked (and decorated!) by my little angel's own sweet hands, do help yourself to one, we have plenty:)

But you might want to be quick!

How about some tea? We don't really do tea here, I'm an enormous coffee addict, but I found the most lovely treat just for you - Rose Petal Tea - how divinely decadent!

Shall I pour you some?

Milk? Sugar?

(And yes he is a boy, he just has a thing about hats, anyones hats!)

And here are Bean and the Indigo Boy, we couldn't leave them out of all the fun after all.  It looks to me as if they're having a good time too!

Thank you all so much for stopping by, we'd love to hear what you all have to say, if you'd care to tell us, and if you have the time, we love to meet new friends.

You're all welcome to come back any time, there will always be more cake, and now that we know about Rose petal tea we might even convert to being tea drinkers after all, you're welcome to come and share a cup with us.  Hugs and joyous celebratory dances to you all, big, big hugs xxxx

Oh and don't forget to stop by A Fanciful Twist  to find some more teaparty's to drop by!

Busy, Busy Bees

I have been very inattentive to the virtual world over the last week or so but I do have a good excuse, oh honest I do!  I have been very hard at work drawing and drawing and drawing.  

I've spent some time on the Delamere forest picture i showed you before getting it cleaned up and scanning it and generally readying it for an assault of colour, I am slightly nervous about attacking it with a paint brush, I'm always so worried that I will spoil what I've worked so hard on that I stay my hand and hang back and it gets harder and harder to take that first step.

I have it in my head that maybe colouring it digitally would be less frightening and so I may have a go at that too.

In the meantime I have been distracting myself drawing a whole new adventure for those little children, inspired by the lovely teaparty preparations over at A Fanciful Twist  I decided that the little darlings shouldn't miss out on all the fun and so they are set to have a Mad Tea Party all of their own. What fun, fun, fun :)

Do come by and have a sticky bun with us all on Saturday, we do love a good gossip over a cup of tea :)
Bye, bye for now dear friends, see you ever so soon xxx

In Lux's Garden

These are just  few of the shots I took one evening in France last month.  The light as the sun was setting down the valley below the garden was absolutely beautiful and the searing heat had subsided to a gentle balmy warmth.  It was one of the loveliest evenings I have spent in a long time.  

That's my eldest angel in the background, yes she is fishing and no there's no water there!  She was catching mackerel and sharks off of the edge of the cliff!  My children are the best source of inspiration ever :)  The next evening they spent ages trying to catch rain in sieves.  I wish I had photos of that!

It's such a beautiful spot it makes me want to draw so many different scenes.  I particularly love the quality of the light in these pictures while the sun was going down, I would love to be able to capture that on paper.  I also love the way the various plants are framing the scene, especially the irises, a drawing lilke this is definitely on my exceedingly long to-do list :)

WIP

Here they are, as promised, a few little shots of my current project.

Last weekend we took a stroll around the stunningly beautiful Delamere Forest , I highly recommend it if you are ever in the area.

It was full of the most beautiful brackens, or were they ferns? just starting to unfurl and spring open, and they were surrounded by layer upon layer of forget-me-nots and buttercups.  I saw my very first woodpecker and Mr Indigo saw a treecreeper which impressed me much more once I realised that it was a bird and not in fact a plant :)  We walked down by the lake and out onto a natural stone jetty where we were engulfed by the most amazing cloud of Damselflies, it was like being in a fairytale, I've never seen anything in nature that is quite such an incredibly vivid blue before.  They just carried on with their day around us, seemingly completely unconcerned by us.  Magical!

So that afternoon in a wood inspired this picture, I only hope that I can do such a glorious place full of breathtaking scenery the justice it deserves when I start to colour it.  I could never begin to capture all of it but I shall try my very best to encapsulate a sense of it :)

Goodbye for now friends, hopefully the next time I stop by I might be posting some slightly more advanced shots for you, maybe evenn with some......gasp......colour in them!

Stay tuned, hugs xxx

New Home, Whole New Me

Hello friends, old ones and new ones and those yet to be found, I'm so pleased that you've stopped by for a visit.  If we've met before you'll have noticed that there's been a name change and there are lots of new locations to explore, if we haven't then don't worry, you really haven't missed much!  I decided, after a great deal of humming and hawing, that it was time to start being a bit more professional and to have one professional name that I would stick to and work under, instead of having some accounts in my own name and some in random names I'd thought up - now it's all going to be a bit more streamlined and it's going to be much easier for me to keep my poor little head straight with all the who's and what's and where's and why's.

So....there is much to come, that I can promise, if you would like to take a look at the things that are inspiring me at the moment then take a wander through my beloved gallery of gorgeousness over at  Tumblr  .  You'll see some of the loveliness that wanders around in my head trying to find it's way out and on to a piece of paper, I hope that you will enjoy it, and that it will whet your appetite for what is to come here.  I am also trying my absolute hardest to get an actual website and an actual shop actually up and actually running - so if you were to stay tuned and bear with me I would be ever so greatful...there may even be rewards :)

There are some work in progress photos living inside my camera at the moment and I will do my absolute best to get them up as soon as possible but in the meantime here is something from earlier this year.  I hope you enjoy and I really, really hope that your visit has been a pleasant one.  If there's anything at all that I can do for you please don't hesitate to let me know.

This is , 'And With The Dawn Came The Inky Black Ducks' , if you've seen it before, then don't panic, I'm sure it's probably not any nasty jiggery pokery, it was most likely me with my other name, unless of course it is nasty jiggery pokery web steallery going on, in which case - shame on them!

But as I said, welcome, come back and see me anytime, and if you'd like to say hello, i'd love it if you'd introduce yourself.  Great big hugs and love to you all xxx