A day of birds, lapwing and fieldfare

As I walked back up to my studio and looked out of the window a flock of lapwings at least 100 strong launched themselves into the air.
All day they have moved across the field outside while inside my thought have been like bird's wings, failing to settle.
Fieldfare and lapwing. Winter birds. Beautiful.

 

Walked in the snow with beautiful Maurice.

Ssssh.... the world is hushed by snow.

It is snowing. Outside a hush has fallen on the world and great white flakes are dancing down to cover the earth. Inside is warm, logs all stacked and gathered and fire glowing, cats melting, curled on sofas, dogs in their beds. And I have been trying to work but now the evening light is enhanced by snowlight and birds rush to gather the last food before huddling in balls of feathers in cracks in walls, to keep warm. In my sketchbook, all the pretty little horses, in my head, the north wind doth blow and we will have snow, and what will poor robin do then, poor thing? And on the itunes, Lorena McKennit, world music with a medieval folk twist. Perfect.
Let there be snow tonight so the almost full moon can silver the world, let there be snow tomorrow to walk bright ginger cats across its white beauty.

Full moon and early mornings

Full moon in a dark sky and the world silvered by moonlight and frost. Moonshadows broke up the ground into crackled mosaics. Sitting quietly by the fire, heaped with cats while Robin cooked supper I read The Claude Glass by Tom Bollough, a heartbreaking book, haunting, poetic, beautiful. Glass of fizz in one hand, book in the other, peace in my heart, words of beauty singing a story in my head. Perfect.

Walking today my camera ran out of battery, so I could not photograph the sunlight caught like a halo in the finest cats fur, the wind twisted tree with a patch of sky held in its basket bowl of twigs, soft moss emerald bright on a monochrome stone, a dog filled with delight at a brittle stick, a leaf thickened ad beade by frost, a distant flight of birds like a beautiful scarf blown across a fresh blue sky,smoke rising from early morning chimneys.

Walking in nursery rhyme world.

New Year's Eve and tonight a full, blue moon. So far looks like clear skies. Outside, cold. Inside, fire and sleeping cats and dogs, tired from a walk. It doesn't take long before the world begins to fit into the book I am working on. With Ice Bear, no polar bears here but a constant reminder of ravens. Today, Humpty Dumpty's wall, a cow to jump over the moon and all the pretty horses. Oh, and a flock of blackbirds that must have come out of a pie rose up from the winter bracken with a whirl of wings.

 

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.

Feathers

On the beach today, four feathers from the fallen wings of Icarus.

A day of birds

It has been a day of birds. In bed this morning, sketching the tangle of roses and thorns outside the bedroom window, small birds threaded through the woven tangle. Then three great swans flew past. Later ravens hung over the dogs, buzzards rose slow into the sky, a hawk flew low along the hedges.
I drew some of the broken shards of my favorite mug, now my favorite broken mug.
Later visited a friend who has one of my gold leaf paintings on her wall. The rooks keep bright mischief eyes on the passing of time.

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