Cards and stuff ...

One way and another, there's been far too much going on in the shape of comings and goings mainly, family stuff (and nonsense) which all combine to push my creativity levels down quite a few notches. So I have been involving myself (on and off) with more practical matters - like getting together things to go in my coming-soon online shop.

Cards, for instance.

Introducing (above and on the left) Field Place and on the right, Haworth Parsonage. Framed collage in the middle. All posing on my mantelpiece.

And below:

bookplates, bookmark and a mini-print greeting card. 

More to come.

In between grappling with Lord Byron's Gothic pile, that is.

Right, back to work ...

A linocut card

This is what I am aiming at: a composite of the collages and the bookplate, another element in what I am now thinking of as my Keats suite of bits and pieces. It will be a hand-printed card.

Still a way to go.

I am getting a bit weary of black and white and need a change. Mmmmmm .... I feel a painting or a collage coming on.

Keats House in Winter

So ... that wasn't my last word on Keats House at all apparently.

Well, I decided as I had already done summer and autumn I may as well go for the complete set and snip away at winter and spring and do a four seasons thing.

I also thought as cats hadn't featured in either of my two efforts so far and as they seemed to be cherished residents of Wentworth Place, with the Dilkes and Brawnes being cat lovers all (George Keats, in a rather wistful letter home from the comfortless wilds of the New World, recalled the Brawne residence thus: "I remember the curtains, the chairs and the cats ..."), I had to include some somewhere. 

Cats are, after all, Very Important Animals.

So here they are, running harum scarum through the winter snow, the very last vestiges of which were melting away when I visited in December, so I have had to imagine the carpet effect of a thick fall.

If nothing else I now have the satisfaction of knowing I won't have to cope with the traditional, God-awful last minute panic of having to dream up and print out my cards for Christmas this year! 

Hey, Amanda is ahead of the game, for once.

(Yeah, but they will still arrive late as usual, I hear my friends say).