Painting of the week - Toadstool

This year, I have set myself the aim of creating a small painting per week. I've kind of cheated here, as I started this one last year, but only finished it last week. So it is unseasonably autumnal. The delicate layers of wash need overnight drying, so even a small piece can take a few days.

Whether I can stick to my resolution remains to be seen - but if anyone fancies an out of season toadstool, it's up for sale in paintings section of my shop here with details  of measurements.

Next week's painting is completely different...

Hedge trimming

 

Two days after Christmas, we heard a commotion coming down the lane and were delighted to see that the farmer next door had come out on this cold, bleak and dark day, to trim our very over grown hedge (and our neighbours too)

 

He'd offered to do it back in the summer as we chatted over the fence. It hasn't been done for five years - it wasn't something I felt able to cope with in the first couple of years of trying to survive Andy. So it got more and more out of control; way beyond a manual job with hand clippers, and hiring a contractor would have been beyond my means.

 

So hooray for the kind farmer, who took it all right down and removed any lethal branches sticking out into the lane. I was rather overcome and gave him two hugs and a kiss on the cheek, which I don't think he was expecting, but Joe said seemed to please him in a rather taken aback way.  I swept the road clear of all the trimmings, and I'm sure the local cyclists are happier with it.

The birds are a bit upset at having their cover reduced, but it will soon grow back again. And this photo has reminded me that this year I have to get rid of the nasty big plastic pot on the wall which I have hated since day one and is another thing I haven't dealt with yet.

Polar bears and snow

My last workshop of the year was scheduled to be Sunday 10th December at Guthrie and Ghani in Birmingham. It was one that I had to be 100% prepared for, as it was a new teaching project and needed a proper written pattern, as well as quite a few extra materials and demo models. However, despite working up until the Friday, I had a nagging feeling that the weather forecast was going to somewhat interfere with my plans. Shropshire was due for an 'awful lot' of snow on Sunday, starting in the early hours. When I learned that taxi companies in town were not running on Friday night, I made a difficult decision and after chatting to the shop owner, we decided to cancel. Which meant letting ten people down and losing this month's income. However on Sunday morning, we woke up  to this.

 Which didn't seem that bad at first, until it carried on...

and on...

 and on.

 The road outside was iced over and only the occasional tractor or SUV went slowly past. The county ground to a halt.

This amount of snow might seem laughable to countries who get it on a regular basis every year. However, over here, on this scale, it is a rare occurrence and we're not usually prepared for it. We had two feet of snow over 24 hours. 

So in the end, I felt I had made the right decision, because even if I could somehow have reached the train station and managed to arrive at Birmingham, I would not have been able to return home, and I'm a bit too old to be sleeping on a station bench overnight. With the temperatures plummeting and the upstairs of the cottage feeling like an ice box, we did the sensible thing and camped in the only warm room, by the wood burner, where we slept each night until the rain came a couple of days later and washed most of the snow away.

Toadstools and cottages

It's been a while, and life quietly ticks over. Nothing much happens and then it's winter workshop season. I held my first local standalone session last month in Shrewsbury at the Shropshire Wildlife Trust. I had booked the modest little garden room, but due to circumstances, I was upgraded to this lovely space. It was my first workshop since the summer, but the old routine kicked in as soon as I begin setting up.

The Reserve used to be part of the old Abbey and has been well restored. There is a beautiful modern stained glass window with little etched birds and animals hiding in the undergrowth. 

Everyone arrived safely and were soon at work. 

This is my favourite workshop subject to teach and a particularly enjoyable group to work with. A couple of weeks later there was an impromptu workshop held at Ferndell Bed and Breakfast again, which booked out within a few days. This time the project was a Christmas Cottage. 

As usual, there was a lovely home made lunch, with Prosecco (though sadly not for me, as I was teaching). The wood burner was kept going all day.

And later, afternoon tea with home made brownies and cream.

So two workshops down and the biggest one to follow. Which, unlike these, didn't exactly go to plan...

Polar bear bauble

This is the little polar bear bear bauble I'll be teaching at a workshop at the lovely premises of Guthrie and Ghani, in Birmingham. 

It was the third design I tried; initially I attempted needle felting a polar bear Santa around a polystyrene ball, which I've always thought was a nasty idea and found it to be so. You may ask why then I decided to try it; because making an accurate sphere is harder than it looks, and I thought it may be an easier solution for anyone who was just starting out. The wool floated around on the surface, the head barely stuck to the wool (or the polystyrene) and although it was neat, I wasn't comfortable with that way of working.

I then ploughed my way through most of an elf fox, before realising, many hours later, that it was far too ambitious, even for an all day project.  

It's quite hard to design an appealing project, that is a bit different to everything else on offer, but which can be theoretically made in a five-six hour period by people of all abilities.

But in the end, I settled on this fairly simple little bear; there are five places left on the workshop, which runs from 10.30 until 4.30 on December 10th. You can book directly from the Guthrie and Ghani website here.

If you'd like to see the fabulous studio space and my last workshop there, please see this blogpost from November last year.

A tale of three menus

 

Rummaging around in a box the other day, I came across these old menus. They are programmes for three Masonic dinners and they tell an interesting tale

The earliest programme is dated July 1902. It is beautifully printed with blind embossing, a satin ribbon and an insert. The menu, by today's standards, is breath takingly sumptuous,  worthy of 'Downton Abbey' at its finest, but not really surprising, as this dinner was held just a year after the death of Queen Victoria and the Victorians did love their food.

The starters consist of mayonnaise of salmon, fillets of sole and lobster salad. The main courses offer a choice of galantine of veal, roast chickens, hams, tongues, galantines of chicken, small aspics (various), pigeon pies, dressed beef, veal and ham pies, roast lamb, veal and ham patties, salads, peas and potatoes. Moving on to the third course, we have wine jellies, fruit jellies, chocolate eclairs, charlotte russe, strawberry creams, vanilla creams and fancy pastry. If that wasn't enough, there were the usual cheese, butter and biscuits and finally a rather anonymous 'dessert'. Just in case one hadn't consumed enough chocolate eclairs.

After the many toasts, one could settle down to the after dinner entertainment, which was very much of the parlour singing kind, consisting of eight songs with accompaniment, by the Cecilia Quartette and others.  As well as the national anthem and a song from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera (I think it is the Mikado), we have 'Keys of Heaven' 'The Country Dance' and appropriately, 'Good night Beloved'. I imagine that after the weight of the table offerings earlier, a few people might have quietly nodded off during the recital.

Moving on to November 1934 - post WW1 and pre WW2 - the programme is another work of art with more blind embossing, gold ink, silver ribbon and an insert. The menu however, is a little more restrained. There are general hor d'oeuvres, soups - mock turtle and consomme - a fish course of halibut and mornay (which is a white cheese sauce and spelt 'Morny on this menu), then braised sweetbreads with mushrooms, roast pheasant, game chips and seasonal vegetables. Finally there is ice pudding, charlotte russe, cheese straws, celery, another anonymous dessert, coffee and cream. 

After the toasts, the entertainment seems to have been provided by selected 'brothers' - one at the piano and the other three presumably singing.

So we move on the final programme, dating from December 1948. This is a much humbler event. The programme is simply printed on one sheet of card and the menu is in keeping with the rationing that  was still going on in Britain, though I suspect that it was quite a feast compared to most people's living standards. 

Sparse by comparison to the previous menus, 1948 offered vegetable soup, roast guinea fowl, bread sauce, sausages,  roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts, finished off with fruit salad, ice cream, and coffee.

After a modest amount of toasting, the after dinner entertainment was very much of its time; dancing to Fred Parry and his orchestra. How times had changed.

Little toadstools

It probably says something about the state of our 'lawn' that we have a sprouting of small toadstools this year. They are of the 'small beige' variety, and despite knowing my general toadstools and fungi, I find these to be the most difficult to identify. Suffice to say I shall not be eating them.

I've been creating my own, more colourful toadstools. 

 

They too are unidentifiable, being made up as I go along, but they are loosely based on typical shapes and forms.

I've made a lot of toadstools in my time, and they used to be quite jolly, almost cartoon-like, such as these, from several years ago.

This year I found myself experimenting more with using more neutral colours and layering tiny amounts of fibres to create a more organic, natural effect.

It is a little like painting with wool, using the tip of the needle to tease the wool into creating light and dark areas and giving a hint of the gills without getting too forensic. After nearly ten years of needle felting, I am still learning new and interesting things.