Category Archives: Art

Attention….Attention!!!!!!

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Well how bloody quiet is it in my blog reader????? The only person making a daily effort is dear Jon! Nick pops up once or twice a week, but the rest of us are a complete blogging shambles – we are flickering in and out of the Blogosphere like a dying candelabra, and we are about to be snuffed out if we are not careful.

I will try to make amends. Since January I have made a few collages, including this one that has finally reached Maddie….

….I wasn’t sure if it was going to arrive – I send these collages out there never knowing for sure if they’ll reach the intended target. I’m pleased this one did as it’s one of my favourites.

And for my Copperplate Special Interest Group recipients, I sent the following….

….a self involved madam….

….a potential murder suspect….

….and an unbroken ink bottle….

….with added flashy calligraphy.

Obviously some of these little narratives are more melodramatic than others. I am liking the ink bottle for being short and sweet and for not meriting the need to feature in a novel.
I hope my CSIG friends don’t find my offerings too peculiar!

In other news: It is Spring. It is warming up. I have shaved my legs. I will be back on Sunday to share something riveting and not to be missed – though I haven’t yet made up my mind what that will be.

How to write a blog post….

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I had lost my memory. AGAIN. Appalling. I had forgotten that I was an artistic genius of unparalleled proportions; that I was from a tiny village called Mogwash; and that my most recent artworks were made from vintage ephemera and ripped up books – but worst of all, I’d forgotten that I was the highly intelligent, yet modest author, of the much loved Wonky Words blog.

Months had gone by without me writing so much as a note to the bin men [I often do as I like to explain things]. The notion of writing a blog post felt heavy on my shoulders, and, I’d forgotten how. One voice in my head said: Just slap up some photos. Another said: Rehash a post from 1957. Voice 46 said: You’ll be fine, start typing and something will turn up. Voice 209 started having a row with voice 19 and I couldn’t make sense of what they were saying at all – perhaps something about putting things on chairs? Trampolines?? No idea.

Thankfully, it appeared that during October/November I had completed a couple of collages, and several photographs of these were languishing in my photo file….

collage-calligraphy-uk

collage-and-calligraphy

I’d also been busy turning my studio into a fairy grotto…

fairy-lights-and-rag-curtains-uk

…and observing hedgehogs interacting with fawns….

…and making demons for a Halloween gardening event.

I had obviously been very busy indeed. But something was nagging at me, I had forgotten something important. My knee twitched, and then I remembered….

*To be continued.

*I will set an alarm to remind me.

Breaking News…..

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Apologies, I have been away panic buying fairy lights and fingerless gloves. I am hoping that the fairy lights will perk me up during the endless Winter of 2021 – 2024, just like they did during the endless Winter of 2014 – 2018. I have made preparations for the knee deep mud, and the inevitable Beast from the East, which will hit the UK for an afternoon in March. I have also made my garden a TRAMPOLINE FREE ZONE – bouncers beware.

Meanwhile, I have cobbled a collage together from bits of old newspaper and a vintage map of London.

Let us have a closer look at the news story from about the late 1950’s…
Click to make big.

If only news stories were as innocuous as this in 2021!

The woman poking her tongue out in the photograph is my Grandmother. She appears to be doing a Miley Cyrus impersonation…

The Blue family are always ahead of the times, and with this in mind I suggest that all of my readers go forth and buy fairy lights, as come 1st December the shelves will be bare of all Christmas decorations aside from two streaks of threadbare tinsel, and a grubby angel with wonky wings. You were warned.

New Post!!!!

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…..or is it?

IS IT??? No seriously, it isn’t really. It is a holding post. I post that is to pop up to say: I am still here, but I am working through ‘stuff’, so I am not here really. I am kind of convinced that nobody else is here either. All gone.

Well, this all makes perfect sense.

I miss my mum.

I am in denial re Christmas, and the general election.

Here is one of my collages:-

mixed-media-collage-with-gilded-letter-g-and-calligraphy

I have been accepted to sell my wares on the new British Craft House website. I am HERE, but I am having problems setting up the payment whatnots… and what with the Etsy shop as well I am feeling like I’ve opened a small shopping precinct, and none of it feels right. All these marketing people are very jolly, and bouncy, and overexcitable, and I simply feel ill at ease and uncomfortable.

I don’t know what I am doing really. I just want to go somewhere and have a good cry. Then I’m sure I will feel better.

Addendum

My dad died yesterday. So I will be away for a while having a good cry.

Exciting News!!! Shop now open!!!

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Iam now available to buy on Etsy!!! Not me personally [that would be illegal], but my collages. It has taken me forever to make enough collages, photograph them all, and then tackle the steep learning curve that is Etsy, and although my shop isn’t the slickest in town, it is open, and it’s enough for now. I have added a link on my sidebar.

collage-with-gilded-letter-r-and-drawing-of-rook
Shop now open!!

Other news: I have been scrubbing. My house is now a dust free zone, and I have very shiny taps. I had let things slide a little since March and I suddenly snapped – my inner domestic goddess came alive and found there was fun to be had with a flexible hose and a long-nosed crevice attachment. She even moved the furniture.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. Apologies for the blog neglect. I am back now.

To Rip, or not to Rip…

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Sigh. Mutter. Squirm. I am in a quandary. For my collages I have been thoughtfully curating illustrations from a vintage book. I bought the aforementioned book at a flea-market in 1991 for £3.00, and for the last eighteen years the book has been kept in a variety of cardboard boxes; occasionally I would flick through it and admire the pictures. There is text in the book and I did mean to read it, honest, but I never did. Anyhow, today I thought about getting another copy and I checked it out online – replacing my trashed book might cost £25+

I feel guilty about trashing the book. I grew up respecting books. BUT, if I hadn’t trashed the book then it would still be sitting in a box, unopened, unread, unappreciated. I would’ve never gotten around to selling it on Amazon or Ebay – I wanted to keep it because I like the pictures so much, and with the collages it is getting a new lease of life, and if I frame and display the collages then I can always look at the pictures…

the-letter-j-collage-using-vintage-book-paper-and-gilding

And the reason I wanted another copy? So that I could trash it, of course. Sigh. Mutter. Squirm. At ease, I can’t afford to do that right now.

To add to this quandary is a further quandary relating to a vintage newspaper – the very first edition of The Sunday Telegraph – which originally belonged to my dad. I was going to take my scissors to the print, but I checked online, and it might be worth £100 – £200. Sigh. Mutter. I am not squirming yet because I haven’t cut it up. It is so gorgeous. Even a full page framed would look good. Damn it. I would love to cut it up and use it. Anyhow, it is now in a box with nobody looking at it. Excuse the colloquialism, but this quandary has done my head in. Of course I would take £200 if offered, but what is my price? How much lower would I go? Or in other words: How much money does someone have to offer me so that I don’t cut it up? Would I give it up for £40? No. But nor would I spend £40 on a vintage book or newspaper to cut up. Do you see my issue? I’ve not really spent any significant money on the items I’ve cut up. Yet.

I am sighing, muttering, stomping my feet, and huffing all over the place. I love making the collages, and when I put them together every component has to be just so. Making copies of the pictures from the book would not have worked for me – I did try, but I could see that the originals looked so much better. There is something special about aged book paper, it’s just so infused with existence [whatever that means].

Perhaps I should remind myself that generally art materials are expensive, and that these vintage bits and pieces are, for the time being, my materials.

So, should I cut up the vintage newspaper? Or try to sell it?

Next Week: More Map News!!! Are we there yet?