..and my artistic highlights of 2018

Many thanks to all those that have followed my art work and those that have contacted me on facebook ...here are some of my personal highlights!

Oils of my favourite places ...

Buttermere, Kynance Cove, Picos d'Europa, Piers Gill and Sharp Edge - Cumbria 

 Lino Cuts ...

Caldbeck, Hadrians Wall at Crag Lough, Wastwater and Hesket Newmarket.

..and textiles ..

Hand spun and dyed wools, bog bean cushions, rust dying, harebell scarf and needle felted eider ducks.

A Cumbrian year - 2018

Happy New Year to all and thank you for reading my blog over the past months and years. Here are some of the highlights - excluding holidays. We are very lucky to live where we do!

Mountains ...

Green and Great Gable, Striding Edge and Sharp Edge.

Lakes............

Left - Wastwater and Ennerdale.
Right - Crummock Water.

Snow and ice............

High Cup Nick, towards Skiddaw from Great Cockup and behind the house.

and other good things ............

Rocky, herdwicks, fly agarics and spring gentians (Teesdale).

Mist clearing - Ennerdale

After our walk out juliagarner1.blogspot.com/2018/12/ennerdale-round-walk.html here's the oil painting. Not a brilliant photograph of it as the light highlights the pallet knife marks too much - but an enjoyable bit of escapism for me!

Mawbray to Allonby and back

A traditional between Christmas and New Year walk with friends. It turned out to be a lovely day and the light was superb. We had excellent views of a peregrine hunting too, with several dramatic stoops (hunting dives).

Criffel and towards Allonby.

Criffel from Mawbray.

Sanderling, curlew and oystercatchers.

Buttermere - a new view!

With friends stopping it's nice to see some different photos of our favourite walk! - thanks Matt.  I still keep wanting to do more paintings of Buttermere and there are a couple of possibilities here - as well as a lino cut! The dogs enjoyed themselves too.

Glasson Moss - colours and geese

A Boxing Day walk on the boardwalks across Glasson Moss. Very warm for the time of year, but nice to be out and about - lots of geese flying round too.

Winter colours.

A vole feeding station.

Flocks of geese - pink feet and a few barnacles.

Trilobites on High Pike.

A frosty Christmas Eve walk to the Drygill shales that lie between High Pike and Carrock Fell.

Looking across from High Pike to Carrock Fell.

Looking down and up the Drygill shales.

Frosty moss and needle ice ....not ideal as the stones were frozen too so a bit tricky for fossil hunting !

Bits and bobs of trilobites and brachiopods! 

Caerlaverock WWT

A trip out to the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust reserve near Dumfries. Not ideal light for photography but very few people around and it was dry.

Shoveller, black-tailed godwits, whooper swans, barnacle geese, Canada geese, teal, tree creeper and little egret.

Whooper swans.

Wigeon.

Hebridean sheep.

Ennerdale round walk.

Yesterday we had a very pleasant walk around the lake and the day even remained dry! Nothing spectacular to see, but thoroughly enjoyable.

Ennerdale and Rocky ...happy boy! 

Misty moisty.....

The clear waters of the river Lyza.

Turkey tail and crested coral/white coral fungus.

Sadly, the Herdwicks weren't in their usual field.

The sun almost came out at the end of the walk!

The Great Print Exhibition 2018 Rheged.

Yesterday I had a second visit to this stunning exhibition ...well worth a look if you are in Cumbria! Lovely to see prints of people I follow on facebook and to see work I am unfamiliar with too....

Works by Carrie Akroyd, Sarah Ross Thompson, Laura Boswell and Colin Blanchard....

Alexandra Buckle, Thela Sykes and Tracy Levine.....

 and Lisa Hooper.

Eyelash fungus (Scutellinia scutellata)

Outside our home in north Cumbria, Tom found some fabulous eyelash fungi (Scutellinia scutellinia). I can't believe they were literally on the doorstep - I wonder how long they have been there!

The Common Eyelash Fungus (Scutellinia scutellinia)

Parton Fossils

On a rather wet trip to Parton this Sunday, Tom spent some time looking for fossils. The fossils found at Parton Bay are Carboniferous in age and are a mixture of shale and limestone, however, these fossils are from the Late Carboniferous and are found in the black shale that is found as pebbles and slabs on the beach. The material has been washed in from the south and was dumped by the old coal mines and other industry.
If you are interested in Parton as a fossil locality or want to visit, visit: https://ukfossils.co.uk/2016/09/02/parton-bay/ or look at a our previous visit looking for fossils here.

The 'prize find' of the trip. Still to be completely identified, a likely incomplete caudal(tail) fin of a ray-finned fish.

Numerous other fossils including lobe finned fish scales (possibly Rhizodopsis or Strepsodus), spines, head plates and other fish remains as well as Lepidodendron.

The imprint of a Lepidodendron trunk (1/2" chisel for scale) in a sandstone boulder.

Slime Moulds and Fungi in the Clyne Valley

Tom had another good walk in the Clyne Valley - lots of colourful and textural slime moulds! ...and other fungi....

A wide range of colourful and textured slime moulds.

A variety of bracket fungi including splitgill, blushing bracket, turkeytail and hairy curtain crust.

Wrinkled crust (growing over a slime mould), purple brain fungus and some other jelly type things!

The rather spectacular lemon disco!

Christmas card designs - geli printing.

I looked back to see what I had blogged a year ago and found that I'd just done my Christmas card design - a polar bear - using a geli plate to print from. How smug am I feeling as today? I finally finished writing all this years cards and there were a variety of designs - all with a small amount of glitter added for some extra Christmas sparkle. This wasn't added when I took the photos so you'll have to imagine, but it made a real difference to the appearance.

Last year's card....and this year's below...