20,000 mark Blog Candy

Hello everyone and, as promised, as soon as my visitor counter hit 20,000 I added some Blog Candy, details of which will stay up on the left until 1st August when I'll write everyone's name onto pieces of paper and David will randomly pick the winner. Just leave a comment before 1st August to be in with a chance, and, if you are able to, please add a link on your own blog. There are two of my clear stamp sets: Zoo Animals and Count My Blessings, two of my unmounted rubber stamp sets: Christmas Season and Christmas Days and one of my wooden stamps: Special Delivery. Also some Magic Mesh in pink, a fabulous Just Glitter pen in gold, a Versafine ink cube in Deep Lagoon, a Ranger Antiquities Frosted Crystal embossing powder, a pack of Wacky Tac repositionable adhesive dots, twenty assorted 12" x 12" papers and (no idea where this came from!) a decoupage kit of a Pansy Basket.
This morning I woke up, always a good start (!) and, bizarrely, an image of a painting that I love came into my head. I was going to share it with you on here, but I cannot find it anywhere on the web. It is simply called "Off!" and it's a Victorian painting depicting a young woman on a park bench looking down at her discarded ring as her young man walks away. It's a small picture which hangs in Manchester City art gallery, but I can't recall the artist's name - which is shocking! I love the fact that there is so much detail and you can look into it and imagine the story behind the painting. If anyone finds an image of it, please email it to me!

It made me think that it would be quite interesting to recall some paintings and drawings that have made an impact on me down the years. The picture on the left is by Alphonse Mucha and posters and cards of his work adorned my teenage bedroom! I've always adored the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau in it's various forms, whether in advertising posters, vases, frames or whatever.

The next painting is called "Shadow of Death" by Holman Hunt, and is also in Manchester Gallery which houses a wonderful collection of Pre Raphaelite work, another of my favourite genres with the incredible colours and detail. This painting always fascinated me. It's a huge painting which has a heart stopping impact when seen in "real life". It shows Mary's horror at seeing Jesus's shadow against the carpentery workshop wall. A wonderful painting.

This beautiful picture is by one of my all time favourite artists named John Atkinson Grimshaw. His atmospheric street scenes, landscapes and townscapes are bursting with mystery and untold stories and just fire the imagination. Gorgeous!

The drawing on the right is one of the many brilliant works by M.C. Escher who totally fascinated me when I was a little girl! He specialised in impossible perspective and optical tricks within his works, which really appeal to my love of cryptic puzzles.

My last choice is a painting called "Flight of Fancy" by a modern Polish artist called Bohuslav Barlow, whose work I first saw at a Manchester Academy exhibition. Here is a modern artist whose work I would collect if I had the money and the space!! He uses lots of strange imagery of puppets, dogs, figures, scarecrows etc, all painted with great skill and imagination. The dreamlike quality of his paintings is what appeals to me. By the way, I should say that the word across the picture is not part of the painting, but it has a copyright over it! Well, I hope that you enjoyed looking at a small selection of my favourite paintings - I'd be interested to know which have made an impression on you down the years.

Meanwhile, don't forget to "be in it to win it" by leaving a comment! Lindsay