Double Happiness from Liz

I'm always surprised and excited when a postcard arrives from Liz Steel but this time it was double happiness when I opened the envelop to find two!

This is Port Macquarie, Liz's January holiday destination on the coast of New South Wales.  It was painted on Australia Day after a swim.  I hope everyone can see the texture in this clever little painting.  Sketching the sea is a new passion for Liz so hopefully there'll be many more of these.

This Singapore kopitiam (coffee house) was sketched prior to Liz's 'breakthrough' earlier in the year when she started some exciting experiments that resulted in the beautiful textural effects you can see in the first postcard.  After all the fun the artist started having she though this one 'looked very dull'.  If only my sketches were so 'dull'.

Thank you so much Liz, these postcards are both heading for a frame.

What a Finale!

My last postcard has arrived safely and how appropriate that it is from Katherine Tyrrell, who brought us all together through Sketchercise.

Do click on the image and you will see I've posted a large version so everyone can enjoy Katherine's beautiful fine penwork and her skilled approach to overlaying different layers of coloured pencil to achieve wonderfully natural colours.

This is certainly more painting than postcard - 16.5 x 24 cms on Arches HP.  It's a drawing of the new Chinese Pagoda in London's Victoria Park.  Such beautiful reflections in the West Lake which Katherine says is not yet full again following the major desilt operation. 

Thank you so much, Katherine.  This one is now in search of a suitable frame.

Wee Scottish House in Straiton

Acrylic 14.5 x 20 cm
Bridget Hunter

This is wish fulfillment - to own a landscape painting by Bridget Hunter. What a temptation this must have been for postal workers but thank goodness they delivered it safely to me.

Trying not to gush over Bridget's work because it really speaks for itself. Click on the image to enjoy a bigger version so you can enjoy the brush strokes and the colours.

It shows how much Bridget loves this landscape. Straiton, near the Galloway Forest is where she lived happily for twenty years with her three daughters going to the tiny two teacher school. She says, 'the hills are grazed by black faced sheep and lower down by hardy beef cattle. It's Autumn now and the leaves are turning and being blown off the trees by the squally showers we're getting'.

Beautiful. Thank you, Bridget.

Gallery - July postcards

Just as difficult as it is to sometimes control our appetites, just as difficult or even more so is it to control life. And so our gallery for July isn't complete yet.

Life delivers us full trays. But we'll take it in the stride and add the postcards to the gallery as they show up!

In the meantime...hope you still all enjoy seeing the cards as much was we all enjoy receiving them!

A sketch, a short note and a face on the side of a flower pot. A postcard from Pat

This is my first mailart postcard that I get from California. Great! It shows a tree-shaded road that leads into a forest. And on the back of the Card Pat sketched an antique head on a flower pot. The beautiful stamp from Grand Teton National Park fits perfect!

Many thanks Pat for this spontaneous drawing that you have probably drawn with an ink pen.

Spring and a new view from a Handschusheimer garden

Garden in Handschusheimer - finally Spring!

Albrecht has sent me a splash of Spring with this vibrant yellow plant growing in a garden in Handschusheimer - just north of Heidelburg.  It looks very much like forsythia to me and is a real tonic for the eyes.

On the reverse is another sketch and a little map which I found to be absolutely fascinating as I unpicked it but by bit.  This is what Albrecht says (I've added in the links to the places!)

The view from the garden overleaf (over the campus of the university of Heidelburg)

This is a historic moment!  One of the cooling towers of the Nuclear Power Plant at Philipsburg doesn't smoke anymore!  Yesterday one unit has beeen shut down in response to the nuclear problems in Japan.  Finally!  From where we live the distance is only 35km!(21 miles)

Then he has annotated the little map in the bottom left to highlight:

• the Romanesque cathedral Dom Speyer (Speyer Cathedral) 1025-1106 by the River Rhine.  I looked it up and it's been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Speyer Cathedral, a basilica with four towers and two domes, was founded by Conrad II in 1030 and remodelled at the end of the 11th century. It is one of the most important Romanesque monuments from the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The cathedral was the burial place of the German emperors for almost 300 years.
UNESCO

• a place where there are lots of hanging willow trees in a reserve (on what looks like an ox-bow lake) - and we already know how much Albrecht likes willows!
• an area where there are many natural reserves (nature reserves?) - so I guess these are places Albrecht likes to go to sketch.

Lots of information about Heidelburg

I looked up all the places on Google Maps - like I always do - and was amazed to see the shape of the snaking River Rhine and all the old oxbow lakes it created prior to being channelled. These are so very evident from the satellite view and reminds us of the power of inland waterways to change the landscape over time.

Winter in Richmond Park; a postcard from Alison to Ronelle

Alison Staite's (Lens and pencil) postcard reached me just in time before I took off to Singapore.

What can I say? Beautiful in its monochrome colours, with a serenity and quietude that captures your spirit. "...but oh, wait a minute...what is that behind the tree stirring this peace...? Oh look, a deer! There...to the right! Oh, and another one,..! Aren't they so beautiful?"

Winter in Richmond Park

A story...this is what Alison's postcard is about. And reading her story in her own handwriting, makes it personal. Gives it life. Movement.

I know you would like Richmond Park.  Some of the old oak trees. like the one I have painted here are so contorted and bizarre they seem unreal.

The park is full of deer who eat the lower branches.  This gives the trees a manicured loo, some of them like lollipops - like the ones in the distance on my postcard.

The rest of the park is covered in rough grass and bracken.  All this surrounded by a huge continuous wall enclosing the area 10km2 - that's three times the size Central Park in New York.  I am so lucky to have this on my doorstep!

Come and visit!

Stirs the desire to look again. Closer.

And simply enjoy.

Links re Richmond Park, London

• More reading:  Royal Parks: Richmond Park
• Location on Google Maps:  Richmond Park

Looking for signs of spring, postcard from Felicity

Felicity how did you know that I live in an alley of plane trees? What a beautiful card! A masterpiece. The tree and achanes balls are perfectly observed. All the details even the single little achanes on the side of the card are done in a very delicated watercolour technique. Before I had opened the envelope I knew there will be a treasure in it because of the carefully painted snail on it. It is shining in gold and silver and even the trail of slime is glistening. Too bad that the scan isn't able to screen it. Like you I appreciate those trees every day and I'm looking forward to watching how soon the still tiny buds will grow into those typical mighty leaves. The trunks and branches sometimes look like arms and legs of humans including the rinkles, just the way you have painted them so perfectly. Thank you so much Felicity!