Amazing Mazes of the Labyrinth Master...

Well, I wrote a post a few years ago, about labyrinths and mentioned my son's art, wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how he could develop these. That resulted in the Resounding Sound of Silence... Nothing new there, then!

However, as I told him at the time, and have ever since, that silence shouldn't silence you or stop you listening to the voice of creativity - or whatever you want to call it.

So here are a few more of his Amazing Mazes. These are usually created with pencil (and remarkably few erasers) but are always fully 'functional', with a genuine beginning and end that simply have to be linked up!

There are a few others, like the first one here, that are computer-generated or part of the gaming world (Hello Minecraft...). I think my favourites are the pen-and-pencil ones; these often shrink to miniscule proportions. They are carried out in stages...

First section...

Second section...

Third...

In the final version, you can make out the intricate lines and forms that all 'work', leading you around and around a labyrinth of forms from A to B, quite literally...

He usually incorporates names into his designs....

And has often created these for friends....but now would be happy to carry out any commissions...

Yet another...Walk in the Winter Woods.

It was a bright day yesterday, as the temperature fell below zero, and so with the skies blue, air freezing and the (previously very muddy) tracks crisp and crunchy with ice underfoot I went to the woods.

I love the effects of the light streaming through the winter branches, and reflecting off the frozen water.

This gathers in all the pock-marks, puddles and pools that still remain from the mortars of the wartime years.

The ice seemed to have swirled around the trunks, shrivelled shoots and roots or the trees had simply risen up out of the water...

The water looked mysteriously milky in some parts and plain murky elsewhere...

Especially with the sunlight gleaming over the surface... And of course the sun brought out whatever colour was to be found...

Some of these were left over from the autumn...

And others were just evergreen...

With strange husky forms suspended alongside intricately veined leaves...

And never far from any of these, man-made traces - frozen tyre-tracks in this case on the path back home...

Wooden Bead Fest/Feast...

I've finally finished my wooden-bead wall hanging, destined to hide the central heating pipes in the corner of the room, or or at least draw attention away from them. Well, that's the theory anyway... Here it is (above) on the radiator, and draped over my wooden screen (below), before being hung up in its rightful place...

As some of the beads are quite large, and the finished item is rather long, the final wall hanging is fairly heavy. It was like suspending a weighty python, ready to come crashing down so I do hope it won't fall off the curtain rail as the cats' chairs are positioned just below!

Initially, the idea was also to use up some of the huge stock of beads that I've accumulated over the years, but this latest project doesn't seem to have had much of an impact on those reserves. In fact, it made me realise that I'd like to make yet another...

Here it is again, next to an orange/blue hanging I made several years ago... I originally got the idea of painting up wood following a trip to Marrakesh, where all types of antique beads were sold, but at a high price (in spite of my attempts at haggling!). So I decided that I'd make my own and try to 'age' them, or give them a bit of character one way or another...

Well, these are the wooden beads, I haven't even mentioned the impressive stash of glass ones that I have hoarded away under the bed, or what I've been doing with those recently... Bead fest/bead feast!