Category Archives: Calligraphy

And relax….

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I am writing a quick post to dislodge the giant cardigan wearing man from Mr Devine’s sideboard. Future readers of this post, and my previous post, may be baffled beyond belief, they may not know of the havoc that a WordPress ‘featured image’ can cause on certain types of Blogger sideboards. Anyhow, this post should clear up the mess.

Meanwhile, I have not been very creative this year. I’m not sure what I’ve been doing. I do waste a bit of time on Apple Arcade games…

Top of the leaderboard!!I am very rarely at the top of the leaderboard – this position was a one off for me!

And I do take long walks looking for moody photo opportunities…

And I am trying to declutter my home, and redecorate – this might be my major time suck, as I do own a lot of rubbish that I really should have thrown out years ago

In all honesty, I really would like to get back into collage and calligraphy. I am back doing the Copperplate Special Interest Group envelope exchange, and for this I made a set of prints of one of my favourite quotes…

I am now contemplating starting my CHRISTMAS cards. Yes, I have used the word: CHRISTMAS! But before all of that I think I will enjoy the Indian Summer – finally some warmth in the UK!

Have a good week!

Thoughts on Tuesday….

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Dear Email Subscriber,
Do you really want this tosh from Ms Scarlet Blue landing in your inbox once a month? You are probably interested in calligraphy and are very disappointed when your monthly email arrives and it contains nothing but photos of Devon countryside, peculiar collages, and random words. I apologise.

I do indeed apologise. I have just this moment stumbled across my ‘Email stats’ – I didn’t know such stats existed. Apparently every time I publish a post it is immediately emailed to 101 recipients. 99% of the recipients open the email, but only 3% click through to this blog. My maths is appalling, but this might mean that 96% really aren’t very interested in my witterings. I am disturbing approximately 97 people unnecessarily!! If you are one of the 97 people then please unsubscribe! You know you want to and I will not be hurt by this seemingly callous action!

I am a little bit worried about the 3 people who don’t open the email at all. It is possible that they delete the email immediately, or they might be dead – it happens to us all, and I doubt we get to sort out our blog subscriptions before it does happen. All the junk we leave behind – real and virtual – it all needs sorting. The servers that hold the virtual junk use a lot of energy – I am just saying.

At this juncture I feel like I should add some calligraphy porn for those who subscribe to see some fancy writing. I have this, it is made from scraps of calligraphy, and I didn’t give much thought to the words I included. I made it back in May and haven’t looked at it since until today – and now it appears to have a theme! Weird.

Collage-of-calligraphy-scraps

Looking for direction?

To summarise: Please unsubscribe to stop receiving this tosh!!! Don’t unsubscribe if you like receiving this tosh!!! End of Broadcast.

November….

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November has so far consisted of….

5 visits to the vets.
2 visits to the dentist.
2 appointments with the doctor – 1 phone, 1 F2F.
1 appointment with the hairdresser.

A social whirl!!!

Quote of the month from my most secret journal that nobody will ever see…

New sofa has arrived! And it is comfortable! It has restored my faith in living room furniture.

I know – it only seems like yesterday that I was waiting for a new sofa to arrive, unfortunately that one broke after about 6 months so was returned and a new, bigger, better one was ordered.

Picture time!

The view up the lane….

A bit of calligraphy…

And Sid just before he developed an eye abscess, which is refusing to heal….

Meanwhile, there is a small matter of an unfinished story, but before that, a tune – someone [Savvy?] commented on a blog this week: Funny how time flies – and this tune has been lodged in my head ever since. The line is right at the end!

Next week: Am I still a mouse? Will Sid’s eye improve? Will my roof survive another two weeks of torrential rain????

Meanwhile…..

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…..back in the real world I have bought myself a new camera. It is very fancy and has lots of bells and whistles; I have no clue how to use it. For photos on my blog I use my iPad because it’s very good at taking sharp pictures of small details, i.e. it’s very good for calligraphy and collage, but not so wonderful at distant views – poor zoom capability.

Anyhow, I am trying to learn Camera. I am calling it Camera because it’s on a par with learning a foreign language. It is fine if I leave it in Auto mode [as seen in my previous post – competent pics of a misty morning, and nice pic of Sid], but if I stray out of Auto mode the results aren’t so pretty….

Therefore during the month of October I will be mostly learning Camera; writing Christmas card addresses in my finest calligraphy; and trying to write a novel. I know crazy talk! Writing a novel has been an ambition of mine since I was a child, but I’ve never really taken it seriously – I have a habit of giving up once the going gets tough, or when I realise I’ve written 16,000 words of utter tosh. It doesn’t matter if it is tosh – it’s the journey that matters, and actually FINISHING SOMETHING PROPERLY. I get so cross with myself. I will have regrets if I don’t try. [All this talk of apocalypse focuses the mind]. I will also have regrets if I leave Christmas card addressing until mid-December [unless there is an apocalypse and then it won’t matter].

Last week I heard this tune on the radio – I thought it was something from the 1980’s – apparently not.

Though appropriate for the difficult times we are living through.

Next Week: Ms Scarlet falls asleep; her ink goes dry, and her keyboard remains silent.

Of Unicorns and Boobs

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Phew! Wot a scorcher, etc, etc… I am a day late with my promised post, apologies, but I am still wafting aimlessly, and playing around with my curtains/windows as per my last post. It is exhausting.

And, speaking of my last post, Mr Mags enquired about the background paper that I use in my collage photographs. It is this:-

Back in 2012, or thereabouts, I decided it would be a challenge to paint some text from my favourite book – a book that always makes me laugh until tears are streaming down my cheeks and I am reduced to a hiccuping mess on the floor. It is this book:-


I originally bought it for my Dad when I was about 10, and didn’t quite understand it like I understand it today. It is a collection of misprints from the world’s press. And I can’t even read the cover without snorting and getting a stitch in my side.

The clipping I was trying to paint was this one:-

I will zoom in…

I was trying to paint it so that I captured the print quality, and failed miserably. Sadly, today’s press is digital and therefore news-sites are less likely to make such comical errors, however this didn’t stop me from reading this morning that Unicorns Warn on Cost of Living Crisis….

A tune, I think, with a seventies vibe…

Hot and Bothered

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It has been too hot to do anything other than to waft about in loose clothing opening and closing windows as per instructions via the BBC weather people. Open a window during the wrong part of the day [God forbid] and there is the threat of being turned into something resembling a dry roasted peanut, or such like. Anyhows, this week has been tropical in Devon, despite appearances….

But thankfully it is fresher and a lot less humid today.

I have a nagging thought that I’m supposed to be taking pictures of my garden for the Great Blogging Gardening Competition 2022. I am also supposed to be supplying Melanie with a picture of a tree, and of a secret path. I must remember to do these things.

I do have this picture of my very first family garden that I can’t resist publishing before Mr Devine’s big event….

I have no idea why my aunt is wearing heels to weed, nor why my mother saw fit to wear slippers to use the concrete roller thingy. This is the only time I’ve seen the concrete roller thingy in action – as a child I used to climb on it to try to see over the big fence at the end of the garden [not the same garden or big fence as in this pic]. I think this picture only serves to underline the eccentric nature of the Blue family – see what I had to grow up with!!!

Moving on, I have made a couple of collages, the first is for a calligraphy exchange…

using calligraphy scraps in art.

….and the second is not going anywhere….

collage-and-calligraphy

I have made a lot of collages, and most of them get sent away to far off climes, or just down the road, but I am going to keep this one. I will frame it, and I will make more in a similar vein. I have a big one planned that will break copyright laws. Tough. It’ll worth it.

Next week [or the week after?]: Scarlet makes merry with a scalpel and some gold leaf. And also takes more photos.