Every picture tells a story

Spent yesterday morning hanging the exhibition of my work at Pegasus Art Shop, London Road, Thrupp, Gloucestershire, and it's looking good!  The exhibition runs until 20th November 2012,  9 - 5 Monday to Saturday.
Pegasus Art Shop is a great place to dispay work as they have plenty of wall space leading along to studios and the shop, so I've been able to create a pleasing show with areas of work in themes including ships, flags, gardens and Gaudi inspired pieces, as well as some individual subjects.

Until recently I've been reluctant to part with my original work, maybe for sentimental reasons, but I've recently  made the decision that it's time to offer what people want to buy and that is original stamp collages - and I can  always keep a print for myself! The quality of the printing is such that you can often hardly tell the difference, but with the stamp collages the texture of the stamps is also very appealing, and there's nothing quite like owning original art.  The majority of the pictures in the exhibition, Stamping Ground, are framed originals, but I've also included some canvas prints and a few framed prints too.

Every picture tells a story and there are so many stories within the stamp collages themselves too.
All the flags, for instance, are made up of the stamps of each individual country and within those stamps are the history, folklore, natural history and characters who make up that country.

Named ships of which there are some originals and some prints have their own histories and are made up of interesting details.  Hope to have a good audience for my work at Pegasus in the next few weeks! Please get in touch if you need more information on any of the work included.

The Colosseum, Original framed Stamp Collage by Rachel Markwick, features in the current exhibition at Pegasus Art Shop, Thrupp










markwickrachel@gmail.com

Christmas Tree stamp collage card

Torbay Stamp Centre, 67 Belgrave Road, Torquay   www.stampcollectingunhinged.co.uk is a great place for all your stamp collecting requirements, and now also stock a range of my stamp collage greetings cards!  If you're after a Christmas card with a difference what better than a Christmas tree made of stamps?   Other stamp collage designs also currently on display in the shop.  Why not call in - you're sure of a warm welcome!  See Torbay Stamp Centre website for details of their range of products and opening times.

Market Art - Stroud Subscription Rooms

Paintings by Chris Bingle

   It's always interesting to see what other artists are doing and the latest exhibition,  Market Art, currently at Stroud Subscription Rooms is a wonderful collection of paintings, photography,  and more, by local artists.  As well as the stall holders, customers and easily recognisable Stroud characters who fill James Milroys vibrant canvases, there are glorious paintings of the fruit and flowers in Veronica Wood's pictures.  Chris Bingle has taken it a step further and gone beyond the market stalls to portray the places where grapes, honey and eggs are produced which finally make their journey to the Stroud market. 

 James Milroy's acrylics

Catch the exhibition while you can as it's only running from 16th to 20th October, from 10 - 5 every day except Saturday (10 - 4 pm). 

Carp made entirely from stamps

My previous post showed the ingredients for this stamp collage fish, which is roughly based on the Mirror carp!   Not knowing a  great deal about fish I discussed my latest project with a friend and it turned out that her son is a keen  Carp fisherman and she was most enthusiastic about the beauty of this particular fish.  Searching through my supply of stamps I found several which I felt would be suitable to create my own version, which admittedly is a bit of a hybrid!   My newspaper background is in fact pages from a Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue.   There will shortly be an exhibition locally entitled "Fish" - date to be announced! 

Can you tell what it is yet?

Add caption

I've been invited to take part in an exhibition next month at The Old Passage Inn at Arlingham, a delightful fish restaurant on the banks of the River Severn.  It's a joint exhibition which will feature artwork of various kinds including photography, water colours, oils and acrylics, drawings, 3D pieces collage and more.  These are the main ingredients of my piece, which is almost completed.  It's a stamp collage and all the above stamps are included in the picture.  Stamp collages are such fun to do!   In the words of Rolf Harris, "Can you tell what it is yet"? Probably not, but you could have a guess : the clue is in the location!   Watch this space to see the finished article shortly.

 

Exhibition of Stamp Collages at Pegasus Arts

Returned to Sender - 1969 letter to a penfriend

Watching Gareth Malone with the Bristol Post Office Choir singing "Returned to Sender" by Elvis Presley reminded me of a letter to a penpal in New York being  returned to me back in 1969.
As a child I belonged to a penpal club at my school and had penpals in such places as USA, Brazil, India, Italy, Germany and France. It was great receiving mail from other parts of the world with colourful stamps on and exchanging news with children of similar age but widely differing backgrounds.  I had obviously failed to put enough postage on this one, but had kept it in my stamp album since then.  Examining this letter to my USA penfriend, Pasty Takahashi I notice that the wording is slightly different from the words of Elvis's 1962 hit.   He'd have had problems trying to fit in "insufficient postage", or "Do not remail in this envelope"!  I had addressed it correctly though, with both the number and the zone!   I never did write to this penfriend again, probably fearing that no other letters would get through either and wonder what happened to her. She must have had a similar experience! If you're out there anywhere Patsy, please get in touch!