Planet Ruby Starrs

Back to the grind... well, in reality back to college, and an exhausting day getting out of bed at 6.00!!!!!! to beat the traffic and be back to school in a timely fashion.  Clutching my summer sketch book which has turned out to be a never ending saga, everytime I look at it I want to do something additional.. not a bad place to be as it is intended to be a design source and inspiration is everywhere....   I forwent 'student' evening preferring to binge on Dexter then spend my student discount on stuff I don't really want - which made me feel quite smug about my first assignment which entails a reflection on Ethical Consumerism, something I feel quite strongly about.  I'm looking forward to exploring how ethical consumerism can be promoted and what is really happening in the world of textiles, it's a massive subject covering all areas from workplace conditions to global poisoning and then of course to the disposable culture in which we live today.  I'd like to ...

lovely faded lettering on side of engine Aln Valley Railway.. I'm not a railway buff in any sense of the word but my brother in law who was staying for the weekend is really badly into steam trains and engineering and he had found this little volunteer railway set up on an industrial estate near Alnwick.  He wanted to pop by just to have a look and so we traipsed off expecting to be much less interested than we were!!! The trains were kinda nice and almost interesting but the fixture and fittings, designs gloriously rusty bits - more gleaming wheels and tracks and the like were fascinating, very photogenic and full of design potential.  Having my new camera I took loads of photos of obscure bits of train, track and engine bits, all further complemented with images of rusty corroding metal bits, faded painted signs, and moss covered sidings.  Very beautiful in a kind of urban engineering landscape way... texture and patina of slowly corroding metal There wer...

Amble pier and The forth Bridge patterns We're just about to have the last of our lovely family visits for a while, and then Hotel Ash Cottage will defo be shut for a while... its been a great summer and I personally feel like the sun has shone all the time... apart from the two days it mattered the sunflower party and another time which lurks in the back of my mind but it cant be too important cos I can't quite remember.  So another summer - another birthday - the car has had its yearly wash, christmas is looming and we are back to college next week and I am looking forward to it. I need the routine back as my days are starting to seriously slip...I've always been good at procrastination but also conscious of trying to use precious time meaningfully - not being in a 50 hour plus a week employment anymore means I have more time to do those meaningful tasks and enjoy considering what I do more carefully.  Weekends used to be full of chores (ha ha ) recovery time and t...

Ahoy! today be natter like a pirate day so if ye be natterin' like one then ye had better be dressing like a one as well... get yer best pirate clothes on 'n count yer doubloons... it prolly better nah t' ravage 'n ransack yer scallywags 'n neighbors 'cause tomorrow ye will 'ave t' give it all back...   pirate snowdog? if ye 'ave a ship then today be t' day t' get out on t' ocean wave, raise t' jolly roger 'n be a pirate! if ye be landlocked then raise a jolly roger anyway 'n raid t' fridge.  its a good day t' go down th' shoreline 'n look fer loot... thar might be shipwrecks t' explore 'n booty t' be smuggled away failin' that thar be usually a good galley t' go 'n 'ave some pirate fodder 'n even if ye be nah by th' sea ye could always imagine climbin' th' riggin' 'n swillin' th' decks...its prolly better way t' do housework any...

Snowdog Launch Day... Wor Geordie Its all very exciting....... The Great North Snowdog trail begins today - yes snowdogs in the North East...  an art installation arranged by Wild in Art  a company who work nationally with community groups, artists and schools to showcase interesting art in different cities and in doing so support various chosen charities. http://www.wildinart.co.uk/ They are putting 60 giant fibre glass snowdogs in and around the North East and Northumberland each designed and painted by a different artist and when they have been on show for 10 weeks they will be auctioned and all profits will go to St Oswalds Hospice  http://www.stoswaldsuk.org/ painting in progress And our Snowdog 'Wor Geordie' is standing proudly outside St Nicholas's Cathedral in Newcastle..... Back in May time myself and four other students with the encouragement (and organisational expertise) of a college tutor submitted a design loosely based on some work ...

The beach was messy today - not untidy but uneven.... and uneven in a different way to before... that's what I like about the beach it's always different!  The tide was just past high and it hadn't been a very high tide compared with recent ones which is why I suppose the beach was undulating in different directions even within a square metre radius.  Contributing to the 'messy ' look were lots of pesky footprints above high water line - people dogs, horses, birds and probably a few less distinguishable ones who knows what frequents the beach on a dark moonlit night. The sea was full of coal dust but there was very little evident on the sand but there were vast areas of miniature windswept pinnacles - tiny spikes with long trails where the wind had carried the grains of sand, close up up it would resemble a martian alien landscape.   On a larger scale there weren't many people evident considering it was such a nice day.  A few dog walkers and a couple of sunba...

Ewok Head dress (on a lamp standard rather then a person) Excellent day with my boy making Ewok costume for Comic Con weekend in New York next month.... so good to know that one week I can make a (very girly) Flash costume for my lovely granddaughter and next week magic a few bits of mock leather fents into an Ewok head dress for my 30 something son... So love my offspring... My son wouldn't model it wanting to 'reveal ' the overall outfit when its finished Dr Fred and family had a great couple of days.  the weather was once again just fantastic even a mad thunderstorm thrown in.  We went walking, climbing, exploring local castles and of course designing and making superhero and star wars outfits.  We had a surprise visit from a couple of old (as in long time) friends who live in France but were passing through which was lovely and such a nice opportunity to catch up we really don't communicate often enough .. busy lives......

Just wrote a piece about the bridges near Edinburgh and when I read it back I though how boring is that - so I'm just posting the pictures as I think they are more interesting, nice lines and odd shapes.... all pics taken from walk across road bridge. Forth Road Bridge New Bridge being built Forth Bridge (trains) Fly captured for eternity in  hand rail

Anthony Gormley Sculpture And so it rains in Edinburgh... Dr Fred and cronies went climbing which is probably why it rained.  I went to the Scottish National Museum of Modern Art which had quite a pleasant collection - a few odd bits and pieces including a Peter Doig, Anthony Gormley and a nice Hockey - the grounds are nice and have a good selection of interesting sculpture.  The huge steel sculpture of Vulcan by Eduardo Paolozzi in the cafe was very impressive.  the vulcan I walked back into town through more impressive Edinburgh streets lined with amazing four and five storey high terraces and then the rain arrived so I decided to have a wander around the Scottish National Gallery which was full of quite marvellous overblown Renaissance and Dutch/Flemish art.          Much of it was early religious iconic based - and then a lot of quite wonderful Italian Renaissance art - not exactly the kind of stuff I'd hang in the house -...

Extra pictures added once home... Inside Scottish National Portrait Gallery Fab Edinburgh Architecture  Calton Hill Monument from Nelson Tower Lovely day spent at Portrait Gallery and then a mooch around the backstreets and courtyards of old town Edinburgh.  Some amazing buildings with intricate carving and odd little highlights hidden here and there.  We climbed up Calton Hill for spectacular views  across the city in every direction. However... I have bought a new camera and while I have managed to hook it up wifi to my computer I havent worked out how to transfer pics to my phone when not at home so only pics i.ve got today is moody panoramic..

Last Sunday I visited the Hearth Open Studio day and was, if honest, a little over whelmed by the superb standard of work  but also totally inspired.  The half a dozen or so studios house a collection of diverse artists working with ceramics, watercolours, wool, felting, there were some lovely clocks and fun little knitted and driftwood dolls - it was all pretty wonderful but the place that really appealed to me was the studio and work of Mandy Pattullo - a local textile artist who does the most beautiful patchwork, vintage fabric creations using old recycled fabrics, hand embroidery, lace, and is very experimental and creative at putting together the most unlikely materials to produce beautiful art. I first came across Mandy Pattullo when I moved to Northumberland, a practising textile artist - I was looking for classes and discovered she runs textile workshops.  Unfortunately  I've never managed to get on one as they are always either full or don't fit into my tr...

I'm trying to order my sketch book... the return to college looms and now I am trying to annotate and make my summer sketch books presentable... this is where the 'slam it in RubyStarrs' signature style really needs to be honed... flock of ibis Its difficult to get the precise amount of 'slammin' and order right, so the end product doesn't look too much like a disordered mess and more of a interesting engaging original.  I do see these sketch books as a piece of art and they need to be pleasing to my eye at the very least!  the last one I compiled to support my circles project never quite worked and I suppose its like all art work sometimes it just doesn't gel, doesn't quite hit the right note and consequently isn't quite right!! seahorse tails Through the summer I have been drawing and collaging, sewing and embroidering as the whim takes me and it is very tempting to try and make this fit the summer brief - some of it does and th...

ends of threads looking pretty in a jar The collecting is getting out of hand.... I found myself seriously contemplating saving a wispy gold piece of tinsel.. I think its called angel hair, that had escaped from the christmas deccies when we got something out of the loft.. I spotted it sparkling on the floor and picked it up ready to stash it somewhere when I just thought, maybe not, what exactly am I going to do with a piece of scratty angle hair - put it in the bin!!! I fear- I get more like my mother every passing day.  When she died we found lots of little collections the most interesting one being bean wrappers - hundreds of them - I didn't keep them - shame really they would have been so retro now!!   Actually on reflection I'm quite happy to be like mum... a few boxes with precious stuff in I am mostly drawn to shiny happy things (people included) and can swoop like a magpie on glinting treasure discarded wherever.  Mostly its not useful - discarded swe...