I've been tagged!

Thank you Katherine :) ( http://makingamark.blogspot.com/ ) who tagged me. I'd read about this on Maggie's blog recently and the idea sounded fun - I've already bookmarked some interesting blogs that I hadn't come across from the tags people have listed :) .

So ..... I have to pass on 7 interesting links and include 7 little known facts? ok here goes :)

interesting blogs that hopefully haven't yet been tagged

http://aquamarelle.blogspot.com/ Patrice Large - I know I wrote an article on him, but I'm hoping he will come up with 7 really interesting and totally new links for us

http://bgmartjournal.blogspot.com/ Bridgette Guerzon Mills - I love her abstracted encaustic pieces, I've never worked with encaustic and would love to try it.

http://idlethoughtsofanidlewoman.blogspot.com/ A great blog by an Australian artist with a lovely sense of humour

http://valeriebutters.blogspot.com/ Huge vibrant, bristling with life, canvasses of flowers, a French Canadian, very talented young artist.

http://pressing-issues.blogspot.com/ Ellen, an American (sorry I put Australian Ellen! )printmaker, again with a lovely sense of humour and interesting work.

http://sarahwimperis.blogspot.com/ muddy red shoes, one of the blogs of Sarah Wimperis, great work, generous descriptions of work in progress and again, a nice sense of humour.

http://derekjonesart.blogspot.com/ beautiful fluid, sensual life drawings and printmaking from the drawings.


I would have included http://am-art.blogspot.com/ anita, but she's having terrible trouble accessing her blog in recent times - she's living in the east and the censors don't allow it. Her graphite drawings are beautifully observed and go way beyond simple photorealism.

Lesser known facts?

1 All being well I'm going to be a grandmother for the first time in September (fingers tightly crossed and prayers said everyone please, as there have been some heartbreaking events along this path) - now what do I want to be called? I don't like Gran, Granny, Grandma, our family never went in for those - my grandmother, much loved, was my Nana, as my mum is to my children. They sorted out the 2 Nana's by diffentiating them as Muriel-Nana and Mary-Nana if they were both there together :). I think maybe I'll just be Nan?

2 the 'big secret' Katherine mentioned I can't talk or hint about - 'cos I signed the Official Secrets Act - no seriously! When I retire I'll tell all!

3 My education as a child was nicely scrambled by moves from Gibraltar to Cornwall, to Suffolk then Norfolk, then Findhorn in Scotland to Naxxar in Malta .... and back to England to Art College in Winchester. Schools ranged from tiny village ones to comprehensives and a very small old worlde Grammar School, founded in the 1300s in Thetford, complete with Latin, which I was dreadful at, though I've come to appreciate the usefulness of what little stuck! and of course university as a mature student to finish the degree in Fine Art.

4 My portfolio career includes working in schools, running a playgroup, being a medical secretary and teaching at a variety of places. My typing is probably 50wpm and can't compete with Maggie's awe inspiring 70!

5 I may look very English - fair haired, fair skinned, but I have a very motley, mongrel set of ancestors! I recently found out lots of details (I didn't do the research I'm afraid) about a fascinating ancestor who was a slave of a past prime minister, who lived locally, freed in the 1700s ( well before the abolition of slavery in 1807) and became a Freeman - to be a Freeman was really really something and the leap from a freed man to a Freeman was HUGE. I feel incredibly proud of him :) Other ancestors are Scots, Irish, French and we think way back maybe German

6 My family are Freemen - a really important thing in Norman times and later, as serfs weren't allowed to move towns or set up businesses and were virtual slaves, owned by the titled landowner. Freemen were just that - Free, they ran their own businesses, travelled where they wanted and ran their own affairs, belonging to the relevant trade Guilds.

7 I can still count in Maltese (and I'm afraid, swear -isn't that always one of the first things a teenager learns?) - I'm full of useless talents - as it's very close to Arabic I can understand taxi drivers fares in documentaries from Arabian countries - I warned you, full of useless talents.


I hope you enjoy some of these links - I'm now off to inform them 'you've been tagged' - so thanks again Katherine for including me in this great 'game'.