Dogs, water, sand, sunshine.

 Today the air is thick with birdsong.

On Meg Rossof's blog, more on The Dog Man. Wonderul.

Warp and weft, gold and stitches in time.

Yesterday I stared at a large white sheet of paper all day and danced around working, but did do thinking, which is working too. Only fear and doubt stop me picking up a pencil and getting on with work.

I met a woman over the internet who I really want to meet in person and she is going to take my Snow Leopard and add songs in Gaelic and turn he words to suit her heart and carry the story across the sea, and I can't wait to hear what she does and how it changes and grows and turns an travels. She has a book full of Silkie stories from her husband that she is going to send to me, and there is so much magic tied up here, because her husband was Duncan Williamson who I would so much have wanted to have met, and maybe, just maybe, there will be stories for me to paint.

I was given a beautiful, old golden screen, silk and painted and stitched.

A good day.

Today I am going to try and settle to the blank sheet and catch some more ideas with a pencil onto paper.

Friday

Blue sky, copper bear, beach dogs and drawing.

 

Skylark prelude and sunshine on horses

Quiet moments. Reading, early, in the bath. On the airfield outside St Davids a few skylarks herald the arrival of spring. The Icelandic ponies, so gentle, have captured the warmth from the sun in their beautiful coats.

Twice on the radio today I heard the phrase 'Higgeldy Piggeldy'. Working on sketches for Cock a doodle do and Higgeldy Piggeldy my black hen.

rough for Cock a doodle and Higgeldy Piggeldy

 

small dog, fiddling stick

 

Long list.

1. Make list.
2. Stretch paper.
3. Walk dogs.
4. Do rough for MBF card and maybe mugs.
5. Do two or three more roughs for nursery rhymes.
6. Bring website books page up to date with new work.
7. Wait for delivery of chocolates from Lauden and remember when they get here that they are gifts for other people, mostly. ( Phone call from chocolatier this morning and he said they had been tasting the chocolates all morning to make sure they are ok. I wonder if they have any job vacancies going?)
8.Tidy studio and bedroom ready for Anji coming to stay.
9. Try and track down the elusive Vivian French.
10. Leave a little space in the day for unexpected happenstance.

11. Pay the phone bill.
12. Cook the supper.
13. Write the two above on the list so that you can cross them off and not feel so bad about all the other things on the list that haven't been crossed off.

Found a place across the world where people have been playing with some of my dragons. Always lovely to see where they have been and who they are inspiring.

Rough for mbf Christmas card design. Folds down the middle.

The dance of the light and the dark.

All night the lighthouse had swept the sky, searching for the morning. At last he was there, and he woke the weary lighthouse with a gentle kiss before gathering up the blanket of night and carefully putting it away. But the night did not wish to leave the world so she gathered, in legions of shadows, behind things, secret, where the sun could not see. There she waited for the world to turn and her time to come again.
And through this endless game of light and dark we walked again, me searching for something, the dogs reading the world with their noses.
We saw chough, a merlin, ravens, the sea, heavy and lazy and barely lifting a wave. We saw rabbits, and a black rabbit dark as midnight, as moonshadows, as a raven wing, again. We saw hut circles, distant islands, geese in flight and guillimots and gannets.
And I found and empty mind and then something, I hope.

Painting again through another sunny day.

The cats have been getting famous in Germany in a German cat magazine. I think they mentioned me in passing. In the paper version of the magazine there are loads of photos of them and they look just beautiful.

Ice, chocolates and the curlew's cry at dawn.

Early morning searching for something. On the beach, even at the water's edge, ice. Ravens. Curlew call and birds in flight. Seaweed stiffened and frosted with ice, crisp. The rising sun gathering up the dropped shadows of the night. The quarter moon fading to translucent with the coming of day. Water thickened by cold, rock pools with fragile ice lids.  Trying to find an idea, direction, for the Musicians Benevolent Card design, and mugs also. Found instead what might be the begining of a new book and the possibiliy of piracey.

Yesterday I was given the most exquisite box of choclates. In less than 24 hours I have managed to secure an invitation to the 'chocolate factory' in Leeds. (I wonder if in another 24 I could arrange to get Jonny Depp to meet me there?) The choclates are a work of art in themselves, both to look at and on the tongue. Just beautiful. Thanks Ann.

All day painting. Quiet, peaceful. Outside is still cold and now dark so have put coal on the fire.

 

 

 

Blue sky, short horses and how to make an old man very happy.

 

A beautiful blue sky day, so walked the dogs over the hills and far away and met the smallest horse. Sky filled once more with ravens.

 

Back home and it was time to fullfill a promise made long ago. Robin had brought with him all the ingredients. There was no escape. So I made him the ginger beer scones that he had been nagging for for months. Easy......

 

 

....and delicious.

Boats and paintings and woods and shoes and drowsy water rats.

 

Milford Haven seemed further away on the second day. Maybe it was the bin lorry, tractors, red traffic lights etc. Just as well I didn't read the sheet of paper that told me that I didn't have to be there until 10 am, so I managed to arrive early despite the best efforts of others.

 

And Milford was dressed in beautiful winter sunshine. On Thursday I had managed to retireve a few more paintings that were hanging in the port authorty offices. It seems that the Waterfront Gallery had 'forgotten' to mention that they had loaned work out. Luckily I had remembered what was missing. They now hang in The House of Golden Dreams.

Today, walked in a wood, slept too late, thought about wings, found a shoe that had been left by a princess in the garden.

Some time ago the cats wrote about another old shoe found inside the house, on the cats' blog. It is a haunting tale of a hobnail boot that site in my studio, never to leave the house. So, I now have a studio shoe and a garden shoe. The white one was Hannah's, kicked off on a tree climbing, sun filled summer day. To find out about the other, follow the trail of the shoe link.

Horses and birds and cats and children and dragons.

Walked this morning through that brief moment in time when the balance of moonshadow and sunshadow is equal, when the ground was iron hard, water was stone and the birds were waking a new day. Could see the towers and chimneys of Milford from the high hill top. Ravens  were late to take to the sky, but on coming home they filled the sky with their black wings shining gold in morning sun.

Broke the ice on the water trough for the horses and gave them all a few handfulls of  hay that smelled sweet like summer. The horses were warm and their breath like dragon smoke.

Time to head to Milford again, then St Marks in Haverfordwest. I have fed cats, dogs, horses, wild birds and hopefully later will feed imaginations and then home to feed the fire.

And part way through one of the sessions with children one put up his hand to ask, "miss, why do you have hay in your hair?"