A week off...

Well, I treated myself to week off last week. 

 I had a lovely time and thought I would share a few photos with you all.

One afternoon we went to open gardens at Weston under Wetherly. Twelve very different size gardens, but all worth looking at.  The weather was perfect, slightly cool so great for walking around.  

part of the fundraising for this went to the local church, St Michael's, which was a really beautiful old building.  As you know I enjoy looking at buildings that show deterioration, and this church was great.

I also treated myself to a day out in London.

I started off with an exhibition at the V & A, Treasure of the Royal Courts.  As you would expect a well curated exhibition. It was a shame you couldn't sketch, but I can understand they don't want the area clogged up or blocking the view of others for long periods of time.

As you would expect, you couldn't take photos, but there were very similar items in other areas of the museum that you could take photo's of, here are a few:

 I love the idea of looking in a pattern book to select your armour.

I also met up with some friends who I attended classes with at Bramble Patch.  It was great to see them all again.

Make sure you make the most of the good weather today.

Day out in London

Hello all.

Apologies - but no photos today. But I can tell you about the exhibition I saw yesterday in London at the V&A - Imperial Chinese Robes from the Forbidden City. It's very reasonably prices at £5 and well worth a visit. The detail on the gowns and their quality was really superb. I can only imagine how many hours work it took to produce the gowns - couching on gold thread.

I had a great day and managed to limit myself to only buying one book - it details the work of Charles Harper. He specialised in drawing birds and although they're stylised they're really amazing to look at - great movement and texture. If you look you this book via this link it shows you a number of his pictures. The book, Charley Harper's Birds and Words, is a real work of art and has so much to look at.

I'm also trying to make progress with my altered books - still very much out of my comfort zone. I'll let you know how I get on.

Hope to hear from you soon.