Poems and drawings and clay and fire.

It seems so long since I asked Iris Milward if I could buy some tiles for my floor, and she said, no, that she would like to swap some work. She has been so patient with me as I have only sent her one drawing so far, but am so enthused to send more after seeing what she has made with the one. The drawing above is heading off in the post to her as so far she has only seen it in the digital form, but below is what she made from it. I love her work an dlive with it in my floor every day so that I walk on poetry. We are both in the illustration and calligraphy tent in Art in Action in July and I am hoping to swap more work for tiles I can have in my small back garden. Her work is beautiful.

Monday

 

Swan Lovers. For sale through The House of Golden Dreams

Woke to see, in the west, the waning moon caught in the winter branches of a hazel tree, in the east a lemon sun rising into clear blue.

 

Drawing of hare, Demonstration at Solva Art Group.

Juxtaposition on a buffalo day

Walking today, the song of lapwings on my right, the song of the sea to my left, buffalo in the fields, a raft of scoters in the sea and a seal. And the cold is back, and I have a fire blossoming in the wood burner.

Playing with words and drawing a hare. There are three big drawings of dancing hares now. I wanted to see how different the drawings would become if they had a different partner. Although the photographs are not very good as I can't get both good enough light and far enough away they do give an idea of how the dance changes. Would love to do a whole room full.

The new hare looks much more flirtatious when partnered with the old. She has the old moon in her eye.

( if you click on the link to the lapwings there is a sound file so you can listen to them too)

Doodle do......

There was an old woman tossed up in a basket seventy times as high as the moon. Where she was going I couldn't but ask it, for in her hand she carried a broom.

Tomorrow I hope to pick up a brush and paint.
On the beach today, wind and rain, sand and feather, a sad tideline of plastic beads.

At home, Martha decided to do a 'Durer's cat' impression. Very good.

Nursery rhyme time

My brain is waterlogged by all the rain falling from the sky. Rain slides down the windows, hammers on the roof, flows down the roads.
Nursery rhyme time. When I was little I had a book, bought for me as a present by the lady next door whose name was Ann.  I was so young that although I could write I couldn't spell my own name. I loved it, with its odd, wide eyed children.

 Some days I struggle to find focus, to settle to work. This is one of those days.

 

Drawing and Dreaming

Cold. Trying to get back into work. Thinking. And while I think, drawing Durer's hare in my sketchbook. The hare was painted over 500 years ago, a brief life caught so beautifully in watercolour. She was beautiful then and is beautiful now, so still, lost in her own hare thoughts.
John Clare had three hares, brought to him as leverets. They lived with him for years, followed him, sat on his knee like the woodcats they are. William Cowper  wrote a beautiful elegy to a hare.

In my studio, with the itunes on shuffle I drew, and then I took the idea of drawing and dreaming a little too seriously. I begin to doubt the wisdom of having a sofa covered in cushions, inviting, comfortable, in my studio. 

Robin came into my studio, where I had told him I was working, caught me in the act of working in my sleep.

The wonderful world of Moleskine sketch books

I have been nosing around in other people's sketchbooks, a thing I love to do. Have loved Moleskines for ages but have only used them for writing in for a while now. I have this compulsion whenever I see them in shops to buy one. They are so satisfying, in shape and weight and paper. Small books of perfection. I have a Moleskine page a day diary that I use to write in most evenings, take something from each day that has been good and use a few words to hold it is time. And when I was at college I drew all of the time. So now and I am drawing again, on the smooth, cream paper bound in black. In my studio there are shelves of Moleskines, most with writing in, some new, all that are used with something precious kept safe in the pocket at the back, an angel, a feather, the card from someone I met somewhere, bus tickets, train tickets, theatre and cinema tickets.
And here there are other people's books to look through.
More examples here 

Christmas day, sunshine, rain, thunder and lightening

Christmas, peaceful, calm, quiet, bright sunshine beach walking, warm fire cozy cats. Christmas dinner with Glyn and later, watching Buffy slay vampires ( very seasonal) listening to the heavy rain on the roof and drawing cats. It seemed that the cats had plans of their own for Christmas day, which mostly involved melting in the warmth from the fire.

Two Hares Dance

 

 

and in one hare's eye, the new moon, and in one hare's eye, the old moon.

Still working on them and wondering if, when they are framed, they will be bought by the same person, and whether they will always dance together in the world.

This is how it is

You expect the day to be a difficult one when you find the corpse of a headless rat outside your bedroom door at 6.30 in the morning. Then when you turn the lights on and the fuse blows and you are left alone, with rat, in the dark. And yesterday the bill came from the vat man, a fine, three times the amount you went over the limit by ( without noticing due to financial ignorance on a large scale ) in February of last year, and that is with a 50% reduction for ' self- registration', and in all of the following months you were below the limit but will have to pay vat on all earnings during that time. And you have to take your daughter, dressed as an elf, to Tescos, to bag shopping to raise money for their school trip to Dubai.

So, walking around the village with the dogs it is a bonus to see a fox loping across the winter field in early morning sunlight. Later, three foxes in the field at the bottom of the lane, brightest red and beautiful. Then on return from the supermarket ( which would have been pleasant as not busy until they spoiled my experience with loud and horrendous Christmas music  made worse by other shoppers singing along ) I found some time to sit and work.
Working on a large drawing of  hares dancing. A diptych. The peace of mind I find in drawing is difficult to describe and I hope to steal hours to myself to work in the days ahead. I know that I should be working on The Ice Bear, but can't, whereas this I can come and go from.

In my head; lapwings, red foxes with bright tails, red kites with wide wings and forked tails, barn owls on hushed wings over golden moors, angels resting with wings spread, a charm of gold finches, a woman with a crown of dancing hares, and the new moon in a hare's eye.