They are from the Scilly Isles (So that's all right then. Whew!)

In a little research after the event (I do try to be an informed and ethical consumer!) I discovered that we can grow daffodils for six months of the year in UK. the first come from Scilly Isles, then Cornwall, Hampshire, the Gower Peninsula in Wales, Lincolnshire and Scotland. See here for  more information, and here about supporting British flower growers....

Aren't they fresh and dainty? They simply delight my eye and my heart many times a day.

I plan to have some fun with the woodland Trust's online Advent calendar - check them out at www.naturedetectives.org.uk  A different activity every day (and healthier than the chocolate filled one!)

In my efforts to live more simply this is something I often ask myself.

I nearly always do know the answer, and very often I just do it the simple way.

Sometime that just means letting something go undone.

Are you stressed by indecision sometimes?

Try asking What would be simplest?

I do have a tendency to make things complicated.

Daffodils in November?

My mind raced off into every ethical dilemma of things outwith their season - you know the kind of thing -  in season good/out of season bad/natural good/forced bad/energy consumption/freight costs/home grown/foreign/blah blah - this is all while looking at them thinking How beautiful! 

Do you tire your brain like this?

Then I asked myself What would be simplest?

And the answer was  Buy them and enjoy their beauty and simplicity.

So I did.

If yesterday's video made you smile, I should warn you that today's may make you cry....(I first posted it in July 2011).

I am demonstrating collage technique at Burgh Hall gallery tomorrow 12 - 3. Should you be near enough to call in I'd love to see you!

Sooo tired

So sorry

Zzzz....

First nice job - buy a box with at least 24 chocolates in it to fill the drawers in the advent calendar. No, first job is to find the advent calendar! I think I know where it is....

If you don't have one, take a look at The Style Files for some beautiful ideas - my favourite is the last one, but unless you have saved up 24 toilet roll tubes....

Over the next few days I shall browse my own Simply Christmas posts to put me in the mood.  Join me?

I was quite thrilled to find these fresh flowers in the supermarket.

Eryngium 'Jackpot'.

Each flower is about the size of my hand.

The label doesn't say where they were grown.

The colour is fabulous. You can just glimpse some larkspur from the garden which dried naturally in the vase and kept their colour.

I am hoping these will dry in the vase, then I may try spraying some for Christmas.

I hope you are having a cosy weekend!

I'm looking forward to demonstrating collage making at the gallery tomorrow from 12 till 3. Do come if you live near enough.

Is it cold where you are?

The gallery space at the Burgh Hall in Dunoon was created I'm told especially to host the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition in conjunction with Tate Modern and the National Galleries of Scotland, which was touring Britain - quite a coup for the wee town of Dunoon. It was a great success, drawing people from a very wide area, and the gallery is a super legacy for the town.

It's a classic 'white cube', quite small, but nicely proportioned and lit. I loved it at first sight and wanted to show my work there. I was lucky there was a gap to fill when I enquired about it, and we got together a show in record quick time!

In the foyer to the gallery is a show of postcard sized paintings called 'Everyone is an Artist'. They have been donated to raise money for the restoration of the hall by four year olds to ninety nine year olds, amateurs and professionals, and are signed only on the back....a good fundraiser with 31 sold on opening night.

If you are near the town you will enjoy a visit I am sure.

I meant to take photographs of all the lovely people in the gallery at tonight's opening, but I was too busy talking to them all (and putting up red dots!)

Just for a change from flowers I put a row of lemons on the table, and jokingly, I asked a friend  'Is it lemons or is it Art?'  Quick as a flash Marij said  'It's Tart Art!'
 
Very tart art.

Thank you so much for all your good wishes.

The exhibition that is!

Since I first saw this lovely space I have wanted to show some of my work here.

I love its simplicity and although it may look a bit stark - imagine some people in there.

Hopefully there will be lots tomorrow night at the opening.

If you live near enough do come!
 
Bring friends!

I will tell you more about the Burgh Hall  and its gallery tomorrow....

..and do something completely different when the computer is driving you mad...

for me, a walk in the forest can do the trick. 

A lot of rhododendron has been cleared from the forest floor this year.

A few pickings later

a wreath began to take shape..

larch and some crab apples.

A useful tip - leave it on a flat surface for a day or two till it hardens or it will s t r e t c h into an oval!

What do you do to stay calm when things get a little too hectic?

Do you have strategies?

Gretchen Rubin believes that 'Outer order contributes to inner calm'. Would you agree?

At times when the studio looks like this..

it's even more important to me that the sitting room looks like this.

To rest my eyes.

To keep me sane.

Keeping it simple.

Even when it's not.

Regular visitors to the blog will know that I am making paper collages of the Isle of Harris and can't stop! Even while mounting and framing and doing the hundred other things required for an exhibition, I am still making more....(it's wonderful! I'm possessed!) I know, I'm sounding like the mad artist....

They are for sale, of course. Details here. And more photographs here.

More from the mad artist tomorrow. I'm just a little bit - exhausted, actually.

PS I have oil paintings at the Edinburgh Art Fair this weekend, with Tighnabruaich Gallery.

As that most expensive time of year approaches (and as I spend several hundred pounds on mounting, framing and advertising an exhibition), I thought a look back at this post might amuse....

Today I ordered tulip bulbs from Sarah Raven's bulb sale. She has a good eye for colour combinations and I've gone for these: Brandy Snap Mix, Pale Tulip Mix and Vintage Silk Mix - even the names are tempting.

By the way if you get deer in your garden (a rather lovely problem I know!) don't be put off growing tulips. When they start to show place some small blocks of cheap perfumed soap around the bulbs and the deer won't eat them. It has worked here for many years.

Have you planted any tulips yet? There's still time. And if you don't have a garden they do well in boxes on windows and pots on doorsteps....

There are still autumn colours on the trees, we've had some wintry snow on the hilltops, and I'm planning Spring - throw in Christmas and I'll be getting confused.

Snuggling down with fur and fleece and St Eval orange and cinnamon candles, different colours and textures and favourite things which only come out in winter, making us  count again our many blessings..

Do you have favourite seasonal things?

(You can click on the photographs to enlarge.)

..with contrast and saturation and photographs of larch needles on the frosty path.

..to cover the car windscreen!

But how lovely.

If you watch nothing else this week, do watch Professor Hans Rosling talking about world population on BBC2 Thu Nov 7 (It's on iplayer). Clever and entertaining, and

his message - that the world may not be as bad as we think - is so worth hearing!

There is snow on The Cobbler, a mountain at the head of Loch Long....Can anyone tell me where autumn went? 

....at Paul Klee at Tate Modern. Have you seen it?

I was rather surprised to find that, although I found it well worth seeing, I was not moved by the paintings. I felt the exhibition showed a different Klee from the one I though I knew: a more serious, intense, even repressed Klee.

It seemed to me that many of the works were intellectual exercises only - and brilliant ones-but without emotion, and with little of the whimsical and humourous that I expected. There were hints too of the sinister and the grotesque. The more horrible this world, he wrote, the more abstract our art.

The strict chronological order was interesting, as were the notes on the context - of war, rejection, anxiety and illness, and the exhibition was beautifully hung (in 17 rooms!) with each work given lots of space. The paintings are tiny and it gets crowded - go early if you can.

It is on until 9 March 2014.

My first attempt at selling something I had made was a total failure.
 
I gave a talk about the history of patchwork and quilting and I had a table full of examples of different designs which I had made. I was so shy about selling that I priced them with tiny discreet labels and didn't mention that they were for sale. I suppose I just hoped they would know! The last person to leave the hall was helping me load them back in the car when she noticed a label and said with surprise in her voice 'Oh, were they for sale?'

Lesson learned. I just felt so foolish....

The collages in yesterday's post are for sale at the modest price of £55, mounted on white and are unframed. I've enlarged the photographs on yesterday's post (thanks Elaine!) and the actual image is 20cm x 4cm.The price includes P&P for UK. Please email me, Freda, at [email protected] if you would like to have one of these unique images or if you would like to know postal charges outside UK.

Today I visited the Burgh Hall in Dunoon which is being restored and has a beautiful new 'white cube' gallery space. I love this simple space and it is beautifully lit. It is bigger than I remembered so I will be showing 30 Harris collages there, but there will still be room to hang them with plenty of space around each one - I think that's important in an exhibition.

More details later. It starts in exactly two weeks. I'm going to be busy, but busy doing something I love, and find so exciting, and I do like a deadline!