New work...

My Time Is Coming...a Trinkets and Treasure Box

I have just added this to my Folksy Shop
You can see more images and other things for sale by clicking here.
I love this photograph, her eyes are so expressive. I have used parts from a vintage pocket watch and a very old key in this piece - sometimes it's so hard to let these things go!

Enjoy the holiday! x

Time Travel in Haworth

Over the weekend our little village stepped back in time to the 1940s. Billed as the best kept secret in Yorkshire Haworth was full of vintage vehicles of all descriptions and people dressed in '40s clothes from all walks of life.
Strolling up Main Street we saw glamourous ladies, GIs, police officers, spivs, land girls, sailors, you name it! Even Churchill put in an appearance.

It was a fantastic weekend and we saw a huge number of visitors to the village. There were dances organised for both evenings - tickets sold out weeks ago. During the day there were stalls selling hot food, street singers, rides in vintage buses and on the steam trains, a fly over by vintage aircraft and lots of parades.

A great opportunity to learn about our past and great entertainment too!

Complete Relaxation...

We have just returned from a few days away. We were in Sandsend just outside Whitby. This really is one of my very favourite places to stay. The views from the cottage are fantastic and change throughout the day. The weather forecast wasn't so good before we set off but we struck lucky. These are the views from the cottage...

I'm already looking forward to escaping there again. We do have a somewhat patchy interenet connection so I was able to continue to fill orders - but very little else.

We spent hours on the beaches collecting shells, finding crabs and chasing around, the children even managed the 3 mile walk to Whitby along the sand!

One of the most magical moments though ( apart from the views) was on a visit to the Sealife Centre, watching our daughter play with the seals. As she placed her hand on the glass a seal swam up to her and for a long time mirrored the movement of her hand, turning in circles and keeping time with her. Wonderful!

I have been busy sketching and collecting bits and pieces so now I'm ready to get back to work and I'm really looking forward to it!

Vintage Treasure Boxes

I'm very excited to finally be able to show you the first of my new 'Vintage Treasure Boxes' . this piece is 'Holiday memories'. The postcard is original as is the sheet music, the shells and starfish are real and the drawing is my own.

Each piece is presented in a box frame measuring 185mm x 185mm x 44mm deep or 7.3 inches x 7.3 inches x 1.7 inches deep. I have painted them with a durable protective paint in colour 'porcelain'.

I have to admit to finding these difficult to photograph. The glass in the frames creates lots of problems and the depth of the frame creates awkward shadows. But I will persevere and improve!

The fairly dreadful photo below is here just to give an impression of the dimensions.

The long cone shaped shell pictured below has to be the tiniest I have ever seen! I hadn't even realised I had picked it up - it was hidden inside another shell I was cleaning.

If you are interested in my work please email me leigh@leighshepherd.com and your comments are always welcome here!

As you may know I generally work in the evenings and where I can around our children. So today after nursery and playgroup we went for a quick walk around the Tarn. We were lucky enough to see the coots nesting

After a few minutes she had a little wriggle around in her nest and two of her babies took to the water. They looked very young and we felt very privileged to sneak a peep!