The Christmas Wreaths

Each year I create a wreath (different in design from it's predecessors) and

force my kind natured family and friends into buying them from me and displaying them up on their front doors. I do feel rather awful about it for approximately 11 months, then, as if by magic, the guilt passes just in time to repeat the process the following December. 

I source the materials that take my fancy several months in advance and then prepare (cut, wire, glue, spray) each one before the arrival of the fresh moss/fir/pine. Those family members lucky (or unlucky) enough to be at home during this time, are given the added enjoyment of becoming Hannah's little elves, where they get to play with hot glue and sharp wire whilst I shout orders.  

On my early morning trip to the fresh flower market yesterday, I reminisced about how lovely the time I spent working in florist was. before remembering why I didn't pursue it….

Yesterday afternoon, armed with a small heater, a can of coke, a bag of flying saucer sweeties and my Dolly Parton ultimate collection set to play loud, I disappeared into my christmas workshop (also known as the garage) to begin my wreath production. 

Several hours later, hands painfully sore from heavy wiring and multiple glue gun burns, a horse voice from singing and two near ankle breaks whilst dancing a little too enthusiastically to Dolly, day one, was finally complete. 

This morning, with only Dolly and a can of coke for company, I returned to the christmas workshop to complete the wreaths. The mess I'd left littered across the garage floor last night proved even more dangerous for today's Dolly Parton disco. After skidding across the floor several times on branches and pine needles and nearly smashing my face open on the unit, I decided to stop dancing and instead, just sing. Surprising, my productivity increased ten fold and I finished the wreaths much earlier than expected…YAY! I think they look quite nice.

Here are some photo's of this years fun.

My wreath advert

This year I fancied hessian bows.

Slate hearts I ham fistedly decorated

Don't know exactly what this is….but apparently it's called Keifer?!? 

                                    

Some kind of fir tree?????

Pinecones ..I think this is the first year I've used them on my wreaths

Reindeer Moss…I absolutely love this stuff

 My sugar refuelling station -coke and flying saucers

Wreath fingers, that sap is a nightmare to get off! 

Moss pinning

Just about finished

  I made just one wreath with red berries as a special request. After nearly choking to death on purple spray paint…leaving the berries red was a far safer idea in hindsight.

 On the door at last…

HKJ Copyright

The Messy Desktop

Every few weeks my computer becomes such a pigsty that I have only two options available to me... patiently shovel through the mess again or throw out the computer and start over with a new shiny one. Unfortunately my piggy bank has been starved of spare cash for several months and so, the dreaded chore of desktop reorganisation must commence. 

How do you catalogue the step by step guide to performing canine CPR and the Heimlich manoeuvre, those bizarre Japanese newspaper clippings that I keep meaning to study, multitudes of Dolly Parton quotes, the photos of fat cats in costumes, and oh, my art work too. The task is a difficult one indeed.

So, before all these images disappear into a folder stuffed inside another folder, that I'll proabably never ever locate again in the mayhem of my hard drive, I thought I'd post them here. These are some of the random things I've occupied my time with lately.

When the weather was unusually hot for the UK this summer...

Now the weather is chilly and miserable again here…

Baby owl

 Kendo kids poster design for a children's kendo event

A really cute little girl I saw at Pizza Hut

         

Some flyer designs for a friend starting her own business up(I removed the contact details here)

 A wedding gift tag

And my Christmas wreath advertisement.

Images copyright HKJ

Happy Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!!!!

Here are my halloween projects this year…over and out!

 For fun.

 The felty wreath.

 

 The pumpkin carving effort. 

 My version of a lovely cake I spotted some time ago. 

 A sketch heavily inspired the amazingly spooky artist John Kenn Mortensen.

AND last but not least, 

some work I did last year:

Images copyright of HKJ 

The Fungi Fanatic

Over the past few years I have developed a rather baffling obsession with fungi! 
I draw, paint and felt them, regularly spend hours admiring fungi photography, purchase every fungi related object I come across to add to my ever growing collection and always keep my fungi guidebook beside me at work incase, I should ever need to make an emergency identification. 

Earlier this week, by pure chance, I stumbled across an amazing set of 'realistic stress ball' fungi online. After squealing with excitement for 30 minutes and explaining in detail about why I need them and how they will change my life, I finally persuaded my other half to buy them for me. As he grudgingly completed the transaction, his parting comment to me was, "there is something wrong with you". This set me to thinking about my fungi fascination and it's potential causes.

I've narrowed it down to three possible explanations:

• I am weird!!!!!

• The effect of one particular episode of 'The X Files' -yes, I'm a huge fan of that too- upon my impressionable young mind. Mulder and Scully suffered hallucinations from mushroom spores and narrowly escaped being slowly digested by a massive fungi organism. These mile long fungi actually exist.

• Being a vegetarian, I eat vast (and possibly unhealthy) quantities of Quorn -a product made from Mycoprotiens- fungi. After 16 years of consumption, I could well be part mushroom now.

Anyway, whatever the cause, the fact remains that I LOVE FUNGI!
Luckily, I have a friend (yes a real human one) who also loves fungi and was kind enough to take me out foraging the other week. We scoured the grass atop a blustery mountain and were rewarded with the discovery of several lovely varieties of wax cap and puffball fungi. I'd hoped to return home some good photographs, but the odds were against me with the gusty wind, my wobbly hands and the local sheep eyeballing us. 
I can't wait to go out fungi hunting again this autumn, but until then, I've satisfied my mushroom madness with several fungi inspired creative projects. 

   

              

 These are a few of the acceptable photos taken on our outing.

I pulled out my neglected watercolours thinking it would be a therapeutic experience to paint….wrong there!

A lady mushroom…don't ask.

An attempt at sculpting with polymer clay. 

A revisit to some of my favourite old drawings :D

All images copyright HKJ

The Jellyfish Costume

A few weeks back, the news was broken to me that a kendo party I was to attend, was infact a fancy dress occasion. I was mortified! 

To my shame, at the age of 30, I still have to be dragged kicking and screaming to shop for new clothes, I loathe dresses and for the entire duration I am forced to wear a 'smart' outfit, I complain endlessly, sulk and task myself with spoiling everyones day. 

So, as you can well imagine, wearing fancy dress is not my idea of fun (even though I must own up to delighting in small children and dogs being stuffed into ridiculous outfits).

In a cold panicked sweat, I began frantically researching nautical-themed costume possibilities. 

My options included:

Don't dress up at all: The most desirable and comfortable option but I risk looking like a very bad sport indeed.

Mermaid:  Displaying copious amounts of white flesh so late in the year could be chilly and slightly upsetting for the other guests.

Sailor: A sensible choice with not too much fuss involved. Unfortunately, my fiancé had the idea first and with his slim, tall frame, would look far better than me in the costume. 

Person being eaten by a shark: The very real fear that even an XXL shark costume could not fit something my size into it's sharp maws.

Pirate: I guessed this would be another popular choice and feel I lack the flamboyance to effectively pull it off.

A fish: The thought of squeezing like a fat sausage into a shiny, scaly, obscenely skin tight ensemble was a revolting thought even for me. 

Seaweed: Fast running out of ideas now.

Jellyfish: EUREKA!!!!!!!! Jellyfish are COOL!!!! 

With an umbrella, 3 million staples, needles and thread, bubble wrap, several meters of iridescent fabric, reels of ribbons and some patience, I managed to cobble together my very own jellyfish. The most wonderful part of the whole costume was that I could wear my scruffy old jeans and t shirt underneath, hidden by the swaying tendrils. What a cunning interpretation of a fancy dress costume, if I say so myself. Amazingly, I must add, I won a bottle of prosecco and a super-cute, Sensei-signed fish hat for the best costume prize of the night. 

Here is a photo of me modelling the outfit in the garden (yes my neighbours are no longer surprised at the bizarre things that go on at our house) and a small video of my jellyfish floating in a pretend sea. 

Whilst researching my costume I became rather captivated (and more than just a little obsessed) with the magical colours and beautiful sweeping shape of the jellyfish. Thus I began creating more jellyfish………..

 An attempt at improving my digital art work.

A pencil study

 A little feltie Jelly

Something from last year, but hey it has jellyfish, so onto the blog it goes.

All images Copyright HKJ