I'm not Carping ... but it would be good to see the Guildhall, Gloucester packed like a tin of Sardines!

Carping is an ancient expression meaning to complain about something .. and I'm not!  In fact, I'm very happy to say that you can see my Carp, looking quite beautiful in a silvery frame in the exhibition, Stamping Ground 2, at Gloucester Guildhall, Eastgate Street, until 30th October. (Next to TSB in case you miss the tiny entrance to this tardis like building). The print on show is a limited edition, and has proved very popular. My husband Geoff says it's his personal favourite!  Take a look for yourself!  Alongside the Carp, in an identical frame, is a can of sardines, inspired by a trip to a Portuguese post office.

People regularly ask where I get my inspiration so the blog posts are an ideal way to tell the stories.  See my blog posts of  10th and 15th January  for the story of the Sardines, with several pictures. You can access the posts by going to my website www.rachelmarkwick.co.uk and click on the blog at the left hand side. You can sign up to receive the blogs if you'd like to!

Japanese Watercolours - sale of work by Katsumi Harada in Chippenham

When we decided to go to Japan on holiday almost two years ago, I wanted to try and learn a few basic phrases in Japanese, and was very lucky to find an amazing teacher, Junko Lake, who has become a very good friend as well as continuing to teach me!  We've had some wonderful times together, and recently visited the Hokusai Exhibition at the British museum.  I learned that her late father, Katsumi Harada was a very talented artist too. She has many of his beautiful watercolour paintings which I have also seen and admired. Unable to keep all of them, as there are very many, Junko is having a sale of some of these small pictures shortly, on two separate dates.  She hopes that others will appreciate the beauty of his work and that his name will live on in this way!

Here are the details of the forthcoming sales in Chippenham:

Fish & Ships at The Amberley Inn - 1st September until 30th October 2017

Our exhibition, "Fish and Ships"  can now be seen in the main Dining Room of  The Amberley Inn, Culver Hill, Amberley, GL5 5AF Gloucestershire - tel: 01453 872565.
We have used this  catchy title as there are many  pictures of both Ships and Fish in some form or another, but there are other subjects too including animals, birds,  and hearts, and in the "snug" and on the stairs you will find a few more of Diane's acrylics, together with Rachel's large Union Jack shown below and a large collage of Stonehenge! Something for everyone! Do call in! Cards by both artists are also available to purchase in The Amberley Inn now!   Diane's work can also be seen on www.dianeyoungartist.com and Rachel's on www.rachelmarkwick.co.uk

Starting a new stamp collage.. and looking for ingredients to make sardines ..

Work is in progress now on some new stamp collages.  My current obsession seems to be with Sardines,  so I've made a rough sketch  of a can of sardines and will be basing my collage on this.

The background is already prepared using some pages from a very old small Stanley Gibbons catalogue,  which have a pleasing aged appearance. I made a similar design with the subject being a Carp and people commented that it looked like newspaper for fish and chips .. I try to keep some link to the stamps and associated paraphernalia so used the catalogue instead of newspaper ..but I'm currently hunting for the ingredients for my collage and the 80c Netherlands stamp is what I need to complete the sardines ..it looks a bit like fish scales ..  I know I have a quantity of these somewhere .. but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack!

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!