Planet Ruby Starrs

Todays views Roundstone harbour perfect weather....

Just been round the Dingle peninsula or part of it.. we crossed over the Connor pass amazing 360 veiws - back over Dingle - a pretty if packed with tourists town and in the opposite direction the summitt of Brandon Mountain with clouds weaving around.  The pass down the hillside was alarmingly narrow in some spots and we had to stop for Dr Fred to explore a roadside quarry.  Down to sea level to climb again up as far as the road would take us up the mountain.  The following day Dr Fred left at5.30 am to begin his ascent of Brandon Peak... a climb hes waited 30 years to complete.  I stayed snug in bed until glorious sunshine forced me out for brekie, a tidy up, a read inn the sun and a short walk up the hill. I spent most of the day painting and reading, just up the hill was a grotto with statues of Mary, Patrick, and someone else I couldn't work out who... I sat there and sketched for a couple of hours the sun was shining it was very peaceful. Other intrepid persons...

Doing all this on my mobile so I can upload pictures... fab fab place sooooo pretty.  We've been very lucky with the weather only one night when we had to cram into one campervan cos of rain.  The wagon train has been very sucessful, and we've covered the ground we have wanted to.  The ring of kerry lives up to its reputation with spectacular scenary but everywhere we've been has been pretty stunning so far.  Photos posted here are fairly random from the last week... I'll tidy and label them when I'm home or get acess to more compliant technology... sadly this is our last night together .... some people have to return to the uk but we have potentially another 3 weeks...

At last sunshine... lovely scenery... wild blue seas and some very interesting weaving...

I've officially finished my first year as a student... handed in my final assignment of the year and its free time until September!!!  - well except for the summer project - of which I am awaiting details.  What a fascinating year it has been - I've learnt lots and while I look forward to a rest without any deadlines I'm looking happily anticipating what next year will bring. So almost time on my hands... not really -  this week I have been getting ready for our extensive Ireland tour.. we are meeting some friends and going 'wagon train' style camper vanning down through Southern Ireland.  To celebrate this adventure I have pimped the van!!!   Beryl is most glorious in her new yellow coat of paint and she deserved an overhaul on her interior as well.  Dr Fred said I could do what I liked inside so thats pretty much what I did and now we have a cosy cheerful funky interior. including dashboard farm with lots of fields... sheep, cows, chickens,...

We had an interesting evening in Newcastle city centre at the weekend.  We mosied around the Late Shows which were happening all over the city.  This is when alot of the galleries, local artist studios theatres and any other art inclined venue open their doors and put on activities and demonstrations to engage with the public to promote art in Newcastle.  A outfit called Ampersand were putting on a science based collection of activities highlighting not just art but education in general and Dr Fred was giving a short talk on the expanding universe as one does on a Saturday night - last week it was Saturn at Allanbanks - our Saturday nights are getting very scientific!!!! Actually I didn't stay for the talk, instead I wandered around the building which housed lots of small very interesting studios, art work and artists.  A fabulous selection of genres including taxidermy, screen printing, watercolours, painting on stainless steel and embroidery (very lovely embroidery...

I've been putting my sketch book together - and while I think it reflects the research and work accomplished I do not like it as much as previous ones.  For me it feels rushed and less personal, it contains lots of imagery taken from the Internet and some of my photographs but not much drawing and very little colour. I enjoy developing my sketch books as much as the samples and final pieces - I think they are an interesting evidence of each journey undertaken for each assignment and they document my best and worst ideas while giving a sense of me and how I work.  while this sketch book isn't as good as I would like on reflection I think it is also because I choose to limit my colour palette and move out of my comfort zone regarding colourways and also because I messed up on time management knowing I had to hand in early. I've also been working on more final samples.... I have my final hand in this week and have been happily experimenting doing reverse stitchin...

Just back from an excellent weekend away in Ninebanks Youth Hostel helping to deliver an astronomy weekend.   Basically Dr Fred delivers the technical stuff - understandable lectures and stunning slides on whatever topic astronomical agreed - this time lots of interesting information about planets and gravitational waves.... and I do the catering for the friends and visitors we have attending the weekend event.   We hire the youth hostel - which I have to say one of the best located, friendliest and nicest hostels I've ever stayed in - so we have exclusive use and on this instance we had 14 interested person come along and enjoy an informative and fun long weekend.  Although the weather was kind to us the skies did not clear for either Friday or Saturday evening so it was a good job most people stayed for the Sunday night when after a glorious sunny day everyone was able to stay out observing Jupiter and some of its moons, Mars rising followed swiftly by Saturn and its ri...

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/collectives.htm A  parliament of rooks  derives from the way the birds noisily congregate in their nests in tall trees; an  exaltation of larks  is a poetic comment on the climb of the skylark high into the sky while uttering its twittering song; a  murmuration of starlings  is a muted way to describe the chattering of a group of those birds as they come into roost each evening;  unkindness of ravens  refers to an old legend that ravens push their young out of the nest to survive as best they can; a  spring of teal  is an apt description of the way they bound from their nests when disturbed.

Red riot!!! Its a stunning spring day up here in Northumberland.. about time, the sun is out and unusually the wind has dropped!!! Its a day to be in the garden.  My gardens not too big and at the moment has a almost display of beautiful tulips - I say 'almost' because I'm a little disappointed - as I state every time we walk past the flowers much to my partners amusement - I bought the bulbs from the flower market in Amsterdam last year when we visited for a few day to celebrate my birthday.  I was really looking forward to the spring time reminder of a fabulous few days away with the riot of colour the mixed bulbs, frilly petals, 'black',  mottled, etc selection I had carefully chosen would provide.  What I got was red, red red .... all the other colours were ones I had put in the year before.... still they are very pretty standing tall and upright in the sunshine.  Interspersed with bright blue forgetmenots they are set off nicely by an old stone wall w...

I've been working up my latest ideas for the current project relating to spots, circles and in my case moths.. Its definitely a work in progress, Interesting how the ideas evolve, and as this happens it necessitates more research which in turn gets bit more fine tuned.  I've found some amazing spotty moth images which I am using to elaborate my drawings with.  I've been working alot on back grounds - using various techniques I enjoyed experimenting with last term.  I've embroidered, furrowed and pleated different fabrics and now I'm about to collage on top of them. My ideas for clean plain lines didn't last long haha, just not my style, I can really appreciate it in other peoples work but for me I need colour and more texture.  My colour palette this time is quite muted - I'm using browns and relying alot on different textures, embellishments. yarns and fabrics to give it the vibrancy and weight I am aiming for.  I'm bringing in touches of red, gol...

Back home after a fleeting visit to the Isle of Skye.  A beautiful atmospheric place with weather (this week) that changed every 15 mins.  We experienced snow, hail, mist, sun and rain - often all in one hour.  On the Thursday we were - as featured on the previous post - walking in snow and mist and the next day we woke to snow flurries but by 2.00 I was sat sketching on the hillside in full sun ! A friend of ours had booked a comfortable cottage on the side of a hill overlooking Carbost and invited us to join him for a few days. panoramic view from our cottage It was an action packed week for my friends -  various walks and climbs every day regardless of the weather so undeterred by the snow covered peaks sometimes totally obscurred by cloud but a promising forcast on the Friday he and his intrepid pals including Dr Fred went off for an adventure climbing in the Cuillin.  I diligently stayed at home to do some college work.  I dont want to misle...