More from the Scrap Book

Travel Scrap Book

A few years ago, I started keeping scraps and pasting them in a book when I went somewhere interesting. There's a lot of mucking around when you travel, and I prefer doing this than reading when I'm away. It's a good way of keeping all those museum tickets, beer labels, and other oddments that seem to end up in my pockets!
Here's the first few pages of my recent one

Hatch Show Print

I've been on my holidays! Just back from a trip from New Orleans to Nashville, stopping off at Lafayette, Clarksdale and Memphis on the way.
The Hatch Show Print shop in Nashville has been making show posters since 1879, there's more info here:
http://countrymusichalloffame.org/our-work/. 
Many of their posters were made for The Grand Ole Opry, just round the corner.

This place was a real gem- I got very excited to see the staff setting type while we browsed around the shop- and what a shop! I spent a small fortune. Here's some more pictures.

Print and Pattern

Hardly a day goes by when I don't have a look at this blog, and today I'm on it! Very exciting!
http://printpattern.blogspot.com/2011/03/book-ruth-green-for-tate.html

When the clock strikes four..

The 'Girls Who Draw' are planning an new exhibition at The Solihull Arts Complex at the beginning of April. The show will be a follow up to the 'Magic' postcard book which came out last year.

This week I've been printing the 'Magic Brew' illustration, which was included in the book. I've made a very small edition, and am working on a printed box, continuing to use found and recycled objects for printing and painting. Simon found a great selection of tree shaped wooden bowls at the Malvern Flea last weekend- and these are being painted ready for the show too.
The new edition will be called 'Everything Stops For Tea' , and will be on the website very soon!

Waking from Winter

I've been ignoring my allotment recently. It's either raining, or I have a cold- excuses, excuses. February seems to do everything it can to make me hate being outdoors. But it won't win!

I've been reading the two volume opus that is 'Tender' by Nigel Slater. It has had the effect of making me put on my wellies and start dealing with the wasteland which is plot 51. Amazing what the prospect of a home grown asparagus tart can do.
Anyway, as you can see, it looks a bit unloved, but there are signs of stirring. The rhubarb is beginning to show through. I cleared up the patch, and was very pleased to notice that the alpine strawberries are really beginning to get a hold here.

I spent a couple of hours tidying, and found some spuds and parsnips to bring home. The salads and broad beans are starting in the greenhouse too. Oh, and garlic!

Maybe it's not so bad after all.

Favourite Flowers

I've just finished watching the Carol Klein series that's been on over the last few weeks. It was so inspiring to see the changes that happened at Glebe Cottage from the deepest Winter to the peak of Summer. It gives me hope that the mudbath that passes for a garden at the back of our house might actually be green and lush again in a few months.

I've been making some drawings of my all-time favourite plants, and making prints from them. Here's the first one of 'Cornflowers', it will be on the website soon.