Here are some more of my photos that I've taken during the summer. They're mainly plants and flowers as they tend to keep still where as animals move a lot, mostly as you're about to press the button. :D  

These first two are a beautiful pale pink rose with water droplets on the petals. I don't know why I like droplets on petals and leaves so much. Maybe it's because they look like jewels and the sunlight shining through them creates gorgeous light reflections and colours. 

 

 A foget-me-not.

 Another rose.

I happened to see a TV programme last night about a Victorian lady called Marianne North. She was unusual for the time because she was an explorer, plant hunter and painter who travelled all over the world to exotic countries, climbed mountains and trekked through jungles to find and paint the plants she found. She didn't want to settle for the ordinary life of a woman back then and wasn't interested in marriage, preferring to live the travelling life and to do whatever she wanted.

The paintings that Marianne North created are absolutely beautiful, full of vibrant colours and were different from the botanical illustrations that had been done before as she painted the whole environment of the plant, not just the plant itself. She even discovered new species and had several plants named after her, unusual for someone who wasn't a botanist or scientist.

From what I heard on that programme Marianne North seems to be someone who was slightly ahead of her time. One quote I heard from something she wrote was to do with men of the time destroying nature far quicker than animals or earlier humans (she used the word savages) had done in thousands of years. That was back in the 1800s! I wonder what she would think if she saw the world today with all the pollution and destruction. She knew back then that the world needed looking after but it's taken many years for the majority of people to agree. 

It sounds as though Marianne was a fascinating woman, brave and determined and I encourage you, if you like plants and exotic places, or paintings to look her up. There's a gallery in Kew Gardens in London, which Marianne designed and had built herself, where her paintings are all on display.

Sightings of Nessie.

I recently found out about the Loch Ness Knit Fest and the record attempt for the most number of Nessies at Dores Beach, Loch Ness. They want people to knit or crochet Nessies to achieve it and they will then be donated to charity, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I quite enjoyed crocheting Nessie and was very sad to send him to Loch Ness, but I did and now he's travelling there.
Here he is:

You can find out more about the Loch Ness Knit Fest at: www.lochnessknitfest.com

It's taking place from 29th September and there are links on the site to find various Nessies to crochet or knit. I really liked this one because he looked much more like the image of Nessie that I have in my head. The pattern for it is in one of the links on the Loch Ness Knit Fest website but you can also find it here if you want : www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/nessie-4

This Nessie has horns but I left them out. I imagine him without horns, just a nice smooth head! :) And very cute, of course! :D

Altered Art Nouveau

I've been having a play again with art and digitally altering it. This time I've taken some of the Art Nouveau images from my last post and changed them with different effects and using PIP.

I hope the artists wouldn't have minded me doing this, but as Art Nouveau was concerned with taking the old and making it new, I think they would have liked it. That's what I've done: taken old art and altered it using new technology to make it new. It's just a bit of fun anyway. I hope you like it too.