Welsh Art Café in Taff's Well

While I was on vacation, I was able to take a mini trip up to Taff's Well. It's easily accessible from Cardiff. There are buses but I find the easiest way to get there, if you don't have a car, is by train from the Queen street station (it also stops at Cathays and Llandaff North). It only takes about 15 minutes from the heart of Cardiff.

Taff's Well is a very cute village. It's name is derived from it's location next to the river Taff and it's history of being a site of natural hot springs since Roman times. It is a great place to spend an afternoon or day. The local pub is great and it's nice to just walk up the Taff trail and take in the Welsh countryside.

While in Taff's Well, I definitely recommend visiting Umber & Sienna Art Café. It's an easy, short walk up the Taff trail and a great little place to see some local Welsh art. Have a tea or coffee and a slice of delicious homemade cake (or other tantalising treats!) while enjoying an environment filled with local artwork. If you have children, bring them too. There are child-friendly snacks and drinks available and they will love creating their own Lego® artwork on the walls!

The owner of the café, Rachael, has done an excellent job of arranging the place and will be happy to make you feel welcome. The café is open 9:30-3 pm Tuesday to Friday and 10-5 on Saturdays.



How to get there in a 5 minute walk

Across the road from the Taff's Well train station car park, you will see the Taff Trail. Follow it (north) over the bridge and to the first gate. At the first gate, you will see two cottages, one on the left and on the right. These are the Rhymney railway cottages (so-named after the Rhymney Valley railway connection).













After the cottages, you will come to a second gate. Just after this, on the left hand side, you will see a little track and a sign pointing you to the art café.

A New Mug for Tea

I had posted about this on facebook a while ago but finally got to blogging about it now--oops!
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A few weeks ago, I went with my parents to the cute little artisan community of Cowichan Bay. I had never been there before and I loved what I found. This little seaside town has an awesome fromagerie (mmm cheese) and bakery, and a great pub, cute little clothing shops and lots of different artist studios.

One of these artist studios is a little pottery shop called the Mud Room. It's owned by a lady named Colleen, who happens to be my second cousin. I didn't know this until the day we went up there and it was really neat. I guess artsy-fartsy-ness runs in the family!


Colleen makes all kinds of wonderful pottery and her skill at the pottery wheel is amazing! The day that I was there, I came out with beautiful a new mug in Colleen's signature yellow colour (she mixes the colour for the glaze herself) with a dragonfly. I love it!


Someday, I would like to get a teapot and more mugs to match mine. Isn't this teapot just awesome? She is just so talented!

Photos from Mud Room website

Blessings Painting

Okay, maybe I'm weird but when I create art, I tend to get a little attached to my creations. It's as though each piece of art holds little snippets of my life. Memories of places where I lived, or life lessons I was learning or emotions I was feeling at the time. To me, it's more than just a visual stimulation. There's stuff going on in the brain too. I don't know if that makes any sense. It may be one of those "it made sense in my head' moments!

While there are some paintings that I will never ever sell, I've decided to put my Blessings painting up for sale in my Etsy shop. I really like this painting, and as much as I may feel an attachment to it, I feel that if it can bless other people then that is more profound than if I just keep it selfishly for myself. So, here it is, listed at HornCat Creations with some more photos and a better description. Feel free to have a look!

The Need to Create

“Artists reach into their colors or to the notes of a musical score, into the developing solution in a darkroom tray or to the flow of words on a page, they are interacting with the eternity God has placed in their hearts. They are trying to be significant in their universe — trying to mean something more than a random collision of molecules. Though modern philosophy tells them they are nothing, their hearts tell them something else. Because their minds cannot fathom what their hearts know, they feel the weight of the God-placed burden. Art often seems irrational, because the heart is reaching beyond the mind. A modern art museum displays the heart reaching beyond what the mind knows, trying to find the meaning of its existence.”
~ John Fisher

I finally have some free time this weekend (yay for Labour Day long weekend!). I haven't had any creative time for myself in a while so my plan is to spend most of the weekend crafting or painting. Funny how making art is like an addiction or an itch that needs to be scratched. I read this quote by John Fisher not too long ago that I thought explained my own need for creating perfectly.

Cutest Bumble Bee Ever!!

I am frequently blown away by the quality of artwork that the kids at my workplace create. There are not very many places where a person can teach and create art on a daily basis and make a bit of money doing it. It truly is an awesome job and every time I'm there I feel very lucky. If you're interested in the franchise that I work at, check out www.4cats.com Maybe there's one near you!

One of the tasks I worked on today was stretching canvases for some of the kids that have been coming to our summer camps. When I unrolled this painting I was absolutely in love with it. What a priceless piece of artwork- and too good not to share. So here I am, sharing this happy little bumble bee, which was made by Abby, age 3.

An Evening with Robert Bateman

Although this happened a couple weeks ago, I really wanted to blog about my meeting Robert Bateman because it was such a cool experience! If you are not familiar with his work, he is an incredible Canadian artist and he was one of my heroes when I was a teenager (I was obsessed with painting very realistic-looking animals in my late teens).

My boss is an alumnus of Royal Roads University in Victoria and she was able to get tickets for myself and a colleague to see Robert Bateman. It took place at Royal Roads (where they filmed X Men). It was a great setting for the evening. The old castle is such a neat building.



Bateman did a two-hour talk called 'The Mind of Bateman'. He admitted that the title was kind of pretentious but what he was aiming for was to show and tell about the things that happened to him when he was young. He wanted to explore the events and experiences that shaped his life and ultimately led him up to the point where his career became very successful. I found it very interesting and it seriously didn't feel like 2 hours!



He spoke about many different things; what he did in the free time of his childhood, where he grew up, different 'clubs' he was in, his first jobs, and what his early drawings looked like.

He is a fairly opinionated man. This didn't bother me too much; probably because I pretty well agreed with everything he said. Besides, if I had all the experiences that he has, I would probably be the same. I like to think that at age 81, I will have earned the right to express my opinion. :)

He gave us his opinions and perspectives on a variety of topics including Native peoples of North America and their culture, separatists groups, the short attention spans of today's youth, loss of natural habitat, etc.

It was a very good evening and I took home a book of amazing artwork that he graciously signed for me. Cool hey?!