Tag Archives: collage

A Seamy Tale of Cheap Love After 7pm….

I made this….

Collage-private-eye-RDSmith

Yes, I have collaged my favourite Private Eye clipping featuring the seamy affair between Mr R D Smith and his part-time love, Mrs Kelly, stitched together and exposed via the media of misprints and classified ads. I haven’t made a collage for almost a year, so I’m pleased that I tried. I’m not altogether happy with the result, but I framed it all the same…

framed collage

This photo isn’t so much about the collage, it’s about the rain running down the window pane. Yep, whilst the rest of the UK basks in glorious sunshine the rain still finds Devon. And what is this nonsense about a heat warning for the whole country from Monday???? The temperatures here are forecast to get no higher than 23C on Wednesday – which is normal.

I finish with my ear worm of the week – I thank Jon for this as he unwittingly put it in my head. This is the short version…

Next Week:- Joy rushed to the oven. “I do believe my buns are on fire” she cried.

Thoughts on Tuesday….

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.

All Better….

Thank you for your well wishes – they worked, I am now well, other than a bit of a sniff. Having Covid was an experience – it was like having a cold and the flu at the same time, the one blessing was that although it was intense it was also short lived. It felt like it went on forever but in reality I was only glued to the sofa for about a week. My advice if you catch it is to do absolutely nothing until the worst of it passes and that way you will probably heal faster. Most people already know this! I was thankfully very late to the party.

Meanwhile, I am trying to get back into calligraphy and being a little bit creative. I feel very bland and unimaginative – but I managed to make this….

Car Crash

And when the sun came out [briefly] it was time to make hay leaving the view green and pleasant…

Pretty Colours

Moody…

As a bonus, and because I’ve been sifting through old photographs, here is a picture of me that I managed to develop from a very old negative with help from a iPad app.

Someone give her an After Eight…or a Campari

Meanwhile…..

…..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.

Hot and Bothered

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.

Attention….Attention!!!!!!

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.