FRIDAY FINDS – ROAD TRIP

2014, August 2014, digital scrapping, family, friday finds, heartwork, Iphoneography, journal, Journaling, kim klassen, link ups, national trust, out and about

Sounds, smells, whirling dancers. Girls with flowers in their hair, children running and laughing. A man in a stripy poncho with a leather hat. Hot chocolate , buzzing from music, words and thoughts run through my head.

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Continuing on from my Tuesday post, we travelled from Somerset to Shropshire stopping off in Gloucester and Berrington Hall before visiting the Shrewsbury Folk Festival.

Find One – The delightful Gloucester Docks, industrial heritage for the modern age…

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Find Two – Berrington Hall in Shropshire. A Georgian delight with a Pride and Prejudice costume exhibition with THAT shirt.

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Find Three – The sights and sounds of a festival I’d forgotten what fun they were.

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Find Four – The joy of live music.

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Finally – To see the joy on the faces of performers who love what they do.

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Supplies by Anna Aspnes

Music listened to: The Dhol Foundation, John Jones, Molotov Jukebox, James Riley, Karine Polwart and Marin Simpson, and so much more….

Roll on next year !

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FAREWELL SUMMER – SHREWSBURY PART ONE……

2014, August 2014, journal, Journaling, kim klassen, music, texture tuesday

My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues.

Mark Knopfler

Mark and I have been away at a folk festival in the wonderful town of Shrewsbury in Shropshire. It runs for four days finishing on Bank Holiday Monday the last public holiday before Christmas. People congregate from all over the country and from out of the country as well, to celebrate dance and music from all over the world.

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texture used kk_coolgrunge

Such a mixture of emotions. I hope to write more when the photos are downloaded and thoughts are consolidated. But I came away with my head full of wonderful music and memories of happy, smiling faces, of weird and wonderful costumes of groups of friends meeting up, swapping tips and stories.

A WALK THROUGH HISTORY

2014, August 2014, digital, digital art, digital scrapping, flowers, heartwork, Iphoneography, journal, Journaling, kim klassen, lightroom, national trust, out and about, Photography, Photoshop and Lightroom, texture, texture tuesday

“The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.” 
― Susan Sontag, On Photography

As many of you know Mark and I try to visit National Trust properties as often as we can. We are members which saves us a considerable amount of money. This week we revisited Lacock Abbey and the Fox Talbot museum in Wiltshire. It has a very interesting history, not only is it 800 years old in places but also was the home of Henry Fox Talbot. It was founded as a medieval nunnery in 1232. For movie and TV buffs it was used as the setting for the first 2 Harry Potter films, and the village was used as a setting for Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth one) and Cranford. To me it is the almost perfect place to visit (all is missing is water), it has wonderful medieval architecture a botanic garden and a very interesting history.

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But this visit was really to learn more about Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877). He was a mathematician, botanist and chemist. he is known for inventing photography, his process of creating a negative in the camera and from that making multiple positive prints was the dominant process throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His work was based on earlier experiments by others.

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Talbot inherited Lacock when he was 5 months old but didn’t live there until he was 27. His disappointing attempts at drawing whilst on his honeymoon led him to think how science might help people with no artistic talent to make images.

If you would like to read more about this amazing man you will some more information HERE

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I wonder what he would think of today’s instant photography and the ease of processing !

Photo taken using Hipstamatic.

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As summer begins to fade there was a last show of beautiful flowers in the kitchen garden.

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I created a scrapbook page. Supplies by Anna Aspnes and Agnes Biro.

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I love this quote from Talbot fox-talbot-quote

Textures used in the scrapbook page are kk waterfront1 and quiet.

TEXTURE TUESDAY – ON GETTING LOST

2014, August 2014, flowers, heartwork, Journaling, kim klassen, music, Photography, Photoshop and Lightroom, still life, texture tuesday

This week I discovered a wonderful new website called ‘ Brainpickings’ and this particular post HERE. The owner of the site Maria Popova writes wonderfully, and this particular post deals with the work of Rebecca Solnit and her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost. How reaching out into the unknown , the uncertainty is so important to living creatively. The fumbling, struggling with our creativity is what makes us grow.

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.

I think we all struggle with uncertainty , when we try to jump sometimes it doesn’t work and we might fall, but how wonderful it is when we step off into the unknown and find something new, something so exciting it makes us catch our breath. Whether it is a new technique a new idea for a piece of writing, poem or composition.

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Popova says ‘ for Solnit, as for Rilke, that uncertainty is not an obstacle to living but a wellspring of life — of creative life, most of all. Bridging the essence of art with the notion that not-knowing is what drives science, she sees in the act of embracing the unknown a gateway to self-transcendence’.

This is what I am seeking, to maybe get outside my comfort zone. I don’t know what it will be but I’m not going to give up trying.

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Music today :

Michael McGoldrick – The Dub Reel (Morning Rory) Imagined Village – Hard Times of Old England (The Imagined Village) Bob Dylan – Thunder on the Mountain (Modern Times) Rod Stewart – Mandolin Wind (Every Picture Tells a Story ) Ry Cooder – Jesse James ( The UFO has Landed)

HELLO FRIDAY – GLAD YOU ARE HERE…..

2014, August 2014, family, friday finds, heartwork, journal, kim klassen, link ups, out and about, random 5, still life, texture

A selection of my photographs this week. I’m continuing with my ‘heartwork’ and these five photographs really spoke to me..

One of my favourite places to visit Bristol Harbour

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A Sidmouth shot, the wonderful Airstream coffee spot.

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On my daily walk .

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This week I met my dear friend Cathy who is visiting from Spain…

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A simple shot. I was prompted to post this by my blogging friend Cheryl who wrote a meaningful post this week that really spoke to me. You can find her post HERE.

“Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.”

― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Being Peace

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Have a wonderful weekend…..

LINK UP FUN– IN THE SUMMERTIME

2014, August 2014, beach, digital, digital art, digital scrapping, Journaling, kim klassen, link ups, out and about, Photography, sea, texture tuesday

Once a year the small town of Sidmouth in East Devon becomes the home of folk….

The Sidmouth Folk Festival has been running for 60 years. For one week it is normal to wear funny hats, bells on your knees and busk in the streets. We have been going to the festival for over 30 years.

There are food stalls.

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Music stands where you can buy anything from a tin whistle to an accordion.

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texture used kk_waterfront1 as a backdrop and Kim’s template and brush. Also a brush by Katie Pertiet

Meeting old friends and making new ones….

There was a lot of this….

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And this…

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Some interesting costumes

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Crafters….

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And of course the seafront, which is lined with traders and dance teams all playing their instruments, shouting out instructions and generally having a wonderful time…

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This is a collage of some of the wonderful people you meet along the sea front. The dance team The Cornish Wreckers a dance side from Cornwall, and a young girl playing some amazing fiddle ….

This is only a tiny peep into the wonderful world of the folk festival…..

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Mark and I are going to another festival at the end of August I hope the weather will be kind to us so I have another opportunity to showcase some more wonderful artists…

Linking up with Kim for Texture Tuesday and Helen for A Weekend Walk…..

Thanks for visiting……

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FRIDAY FINDS – A SUCCESSFUL STILL LIFE

2014, August 2014, digital art, digital scrapping, flowers, Friday, friday finds, heartwork, Journaling

A selection of my photography this week

After taking many, many shots I finally was happy with this edit. Adjusted in Lightroom using Kim’s lovely new LR preset ‘bare. ‘ Some light texturing in PS and one of my photographs from printed.com

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I’ve always liked photographs of bottles with flowers in them and I created this using my painted wine box on a coffee table to give height.

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Copying a still life in THIS magazine

I played around with type and created my own brush….

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And finally two layouts, the first one showing my beautiful blue vase that my good blogging friend Helen gave me. She hosts a linky called weekend walk check it out HERE

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Supplies by Anna Aspnes and Katie Pertiet

And continuing with my Be Still work….

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Supplies by Anna Aspnes

Have a great weekend……

Sounds, smells, whirling dancers. Girls with flowers in their hair, children running and laughing. A man in a stripy poncho with a leather hat. Hot chocolate , buzzing from music, words and thoughts run through my head.

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