Beauty from afar.................

In my mailbox this week......from across the pond!  

Have you met Eileen? Her blog, Drawings From Nature ~ her pen name is Milly ~ is definitely one of my favorites. 

Her treasure hunting walks along the shoreline of Cumbria on the northwest coast of England, are brought to life in her amazing art.  

Eileen walks the shore almost daily, no matter how cold, windy, wet......but rarely ever really hot being that far north. She pulls on her wellies, bundles up warmly, and just gets out there in search of nature's little treasures. I admire her so much. 
In 2011 her ambitious weekly venture was to draw and paint something from nature picked up along the shore.  An awesome body of work, her fifty two pages of beautiful illustrations were successfully completed end of December............I could hardly keep still waiting for each one to appear.

Feathers, shells, oak leaves and acorns, berries, petals and blossoms blown toward the beach. Crabs picked clean by hungry birds, a dragonfly or butterfly whose short numbered days were over. Seaweed fronds both wet and dry, Mermaid Purses, fish washed up on the sand never to return to the rough cold ocean, even shards of pretty china and pottery washed ashore from ships perhaps.

Eileen's work is so detailed.  Every frond, feather, scale, and vein is delicately rendered by her fine brushes and pens.  When colors are added they are exquisite, true to nature's palette.

I purchased some items from Eileen's ETSY shop ~ the tags depicting English oak leaves and feathers, and a folder of her larger art cards. These art cards with feathers, shells, dragonfly etc. I was already familiar with..............as on a damp early morning last Spring, after my overnight transatlantic flight, I met her in person very briefly in an English railway station cafe, along with a mutual blogging friend, Delila from Finland, who had come to visit with Eileen. It was much too quick, just time for a cuppa, a hug, and an exchange of lovely 'blog pal gifts'.  Mine was the folder of Eileen's beautiful cards ~ what a lucky day!

Eileen's package in the mail contained my purchases and some lovely surprise items too ~ the beautiful dimensional butterfly tags, some stamped tags, and a delightful bookmark.

Eileen's designs have also been printed on fabrics, to see how absolutely gorgeous they are ~ go here

..............and the end of the story is that I did actually have another brief meeting with Eileen, and Delila, when we visited Beatrix Potter's Lake District home, Hilltop, on a perfect English sunny day last Spring. 


I hope 'brief meeting' will not always describe our get-togethers..........I want to spend more time and perhaps walk that awesome Cumbrian shore with Eileen. I have my Wellington boots at the ready!