It has been ages since I caught up with my blog, the summer has been busy. Travelling to Devon sorting out the house, visiting Bournemouth to see the boys, and of course my new granddaughter in Rathmell!

Never short of things to do, I have taken up running again, and even though I have slight achilles tendonitis I am enjoying it very much. I bought myself some new Brooks running shoes and I'm off! I have been wanting to get fit all year, and once November arrived it seemed silly to wait until 2012, why wait till the New Year to start a project!!!

So I have lost nearly a stone in weight and I am feeling pretty pleased with myself, I hope I can keep it going and reach my long term weight and fitness goal!

I can't believe it is less than month till Christmas, and I will most likely have to visit Devon inbetween, ah well, "que sera sera" as my mum always used to tell me!

We are hopefully getting out and doing some land art today, Rich wants to make a oak leaf ball or something to do with birch bark for his exhibition which starts Tuesday 14th June, it won't be ready for the start but bits and bobs will be appearing every now and again, the exhibiton goes on until October so it will be interesting to see how it goes regards selling any of his artwork. I really hope it goes well, when you put your heart and soul into your work you really want things to happen!

I think I might have to go back to bed for a bit, I have been up since 4am, I have a horrible cough and laying down makes it worse, so I got up and started cutting out bits and bobs for a collage I am doing. Im going to post a picture of all the cuttings out and you might think I have gone nuts, I am beginning to think so anyway!

Night night!

Loch Fyne Razor Shell Sculpture

Loch Fyne Razor Shell Sculpture, originally uploaded by JRT Pickle.

I love these shells, you don't always come across them, but on the shores of Loch Fyne in Scotland I found so many I had to give up collecting them!

I was going to lay them flat and make a mosaic pattern on the sand, I held one up to look at it, the sun caught the wonderful colours of the shells, so I decided to stand them up like soldiers on parade and catch the late afternoon shadows. It was a glorious day.

After spending many hours on the beach we decided to visit a lovely little inn on the sea front and a beer and a plate of langoustines with crusty bread and garlic butter have never tasted so good. We camped one more night before making our way home. I look forward to the next time we go to Scotland. For a land artist Scotlands coast is just fantastic.

far out, dude . . .

far out, dude . . ., originally uploaded by billbalance.

Billbalance rock balances are amazing!

Leaf Mosaic

Leaf Mosaic, originally uploaded by JRT Pickle.

We had a lovely quiet day at Clougha in Lancashire, creating land art. I have not done any since doing the mud spiral and I looked forward to doing something. The weather is very warm for the time of year, summer seems to have arrived early and we will not complain!

I collected some red, green, yellow leaves and some lovely mud from the river bank, it is great mud, very thick and sticky perfect for land art. Mud varies a lot on where you get it, it can be dark black to a horrible brown and the stickiness of it also varies. I should write a list of different types of mud!

Now I did use scissors to cut the leaves into little squares, I don't feel this is land art cheating even though some might think so, it is just another way of using natural materials for art. I found very nice triangular bit of rock, created my mud square and then spent quite a few hours putting on the coloured leaves!

I like the end result, the red leaves after a few hours turned brown, I will go back to the sculpture later and see if it has changed even more.

Acorn Cup Mud Spiral

Acorn Cup Mud Spiral, originally uploaded by JRT Pickle.

This is a sculpture I made on the 19th March 2011. It was a lovely warm spring day and we decided to go over to Thythe Barn Wood and make a sculpture there. Richard was busy making something and I sat for ages on a log soaking up the atmosphere and letting my artistic juices get going. I noticed a small acorn cup on the ground and had a look for more, but I could only find the one! Then mud sprung to my mind, we always have some sort of container with us and I ditched the lunch into the rucksack and went looking for mud, using a teaspoon for a shovel!! I found some but it was a bit thick, water from our drink supply came in handy, actually there is a stream at the wood but it is a couple of minutes down to it and a couple of minutes back up! Drink bottle was easier! Making the mud more fluid and seeing the wonderful smooth plain beech tree trunks I set to making my little acorn cup spriral. My sculpture/photo also got into Flickr Explore on 25th March, how pleased was I!

Double Stick V

Double Stick V, originally uploaded by JRT Pickle back doing land art!.

Sculptures made at a beautfiul location in the Forest of Bowland.