It doesn’t matter how many images I sell, it’s always nice to see them in their final print format, whether it’s a magazine, fine art print or calendar.

The new Sheffield 2011 calendar is now out and I’m delighted to say it has one of my images on the front this year.

The calendar has some lovely photographs of the different parts of Sheffield, showing the best of the city through the seasons and at different times of the day.

Great for anyone who loves the city, or wants a reminder of their home town.

I will once again be showing some of my work in the forthcoming Summer Open Exhibition at the Clock Tower Gallery, Sheffield.

The Clock Tower Gallery is within the Northern General Hospital on Herries Road, and the exhibition supports the Zest Arts in Health programme, so most of the work is for sale and twenty percent of the proceeds from all sales go to the programme.

If you haven’t been before, the Summer Open exhibition is worth a visit, as it attracts a wide range of artists, with mediums usually including fine art, photography, ceramics, textiles and jewellery.

It is open to the general public between 9am and 5pm from Monday to Friday and is showing between August 16th and September 17th.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Arts Project

It proved to be a completely fascinating two hours. About 10 of us trundled along after our expert, who explained that there would be plenty of opportunity to taste things along the way. We all swapped apprehensive glances, as he clearly wasn’t referring to a tea break at Forge cafe.

We needn’t have worried though, as he most certainly knew his stuff. The first tasting was of Sweet Cicely, which has a beautiful sweet aniseed flavour and can be used for all manner of things, from sweetening sour fruits in cooking, to the creation of herbal remedies for disorders such as indigestion. Although it looks uncannily like Cow Parsley at first glance, it wasn’t long before we got the hang of the differences and we all started making our proud identifications of the plant as we wandered along. You wouldn’t think that Forge Dam was so full of plants, but during the walk we discovered the amazing properties of no less than 20 plants that we wouldn’t have given a second glance to without the endless knowledge and enthusiasm of ‘Bendle’

The event was organised by Sheffield Environment weeks and is one of more than 200 activities taking part throughout the city, which aim to promote environmental awareness.

I went along out of personal interest, but it was very valuable and I’m sure that some of the information I gathered will be of great use as I develop my new range of greeting cards called ‘natural healing’.