Distractions no 3

There are many ways to distract myself from work. I bought an iPad this week and went online to try and find a case, but all that I could find were masculine, functional and ugly. So I decided to make my own. One thing leads to another and now I find that I have a shop at Cafe Press, and it is to become the gift shop for The House of Golden Dreams. As time goes on the stock will grow, and it can also grow by request, so, if you see an iPhone cover but have a blackberry, just email to request something.
I haven't yet bought anything from cafe press but hope to get badges made in time for Art in Action and iPad cover when I can decide what I want on it. And with luck I will put a whole range of things on to coincide with the launch of the Cat and the Fiddle.

Studio, Thursday.

On my desk today, cats and owls.

Yesterday I took Pixie to the vet. She is the star of my book, I am Cat, that I am working on. Her face will be on the cover. She told me what to write and the cat curl dreaming is ammonite Pixie. But, she has been ill off and on for a few years now. She has colds that she can't shake and no amount of anti-biotics seems to shift it. For a while I stopped treating her, but yesterday took her again to the vets. Such a sorry state she was in, it did not seem fair. And she is such a dear and beautiful small creature.

By the time I got to the vets she was not only crusted with snot but had been sick in the cat basket. She hates cars. Moira was unsure what we could do next but decided to just throw everything at her.Nothing to loose. Pixie couldn't go on like this. 

So, I came home with the prospect of having to work on a book built around the memory of yet another dear, beautiful dead cat.

At this moment though Pixie is in my studio, curled on my knee. I have not heard her sneeze once today yet. She does not smell. She is not completely clear with her breathing, but so much better.

And I have hope.

I want I am Cat to be a celebration of her, and her brother, Maurice ( I miss him so much it hurts) and not a memorial to them.

He sings his song in May.....

Walking at the airfield today and there were so many skylarks. We heard a churring sound, like a blackbird alarm call, but different. A little way on a bird was being chased over the commonland, calling again. It was a cuckoo, female. The sound we had heard was the cuckoo's alarm call.

Soon I will be moving my blog, taking it in to my website and gathering in the cat blog too, and blogging on wordpress. A new start for me, lots more learning, but hopefully a good change.

My daughter teaching me how to do films better!

Monday, Monday

Too many things are getting in the way of working today, including the mess of kingfishers and tigers, hares and wolves that have take up residence on my desk. My thoughts hide within porcelain eggs one minute and the next they are running and sleeping with wolves, hunting with a lynx in the snow watched by an owl, and then flying over the Rainwilds with a red dragon.
Meanwhile, downstairs I have a lovely desk that is waiting to nest and I have a determination to not fill it up with rubbish.

I am Cat, progress.

First and second spreads of 'I am Cat', to be published next autumn by Frances Lincoln. When thinking of books I think of the turn of the page, where the spine is, a balance for words and much more. And before the painting of the sleeping cat there is the cover, the end paper, the title page. The words for both spreads read....

I am Cat. At night I prowl, but in the day I sleep, curled in warm places, ammonite tight. And when I sleep I dream. 

I dream that I roam deep in the jungle, bright flame cat of the forest, striped like light, like shadow, sun scorched.

 

 

In the garden, in the studio...

radishes and tigers.

 

Creeping up on a tiger

Walking in search of the golden dancing iris at the airfield. There were ponies and foals and butterflies and orchids, skylark and linnets and the constant song of a calling cuckoo.

Back home. I have been illustrating now for almost 30 years and still I find the tyranny of the white page a strange torture. I have stalked toward this tiger for about three weeks, creeping up, hiding behind paintings of foxes, wolves, trying to catch the tiger while it was unaware . Now the piece is started, so the page is no longer blank, white, waiting. And now I just think, ah well, there's still time to spoil it.

So what is it about this process that I enjoy?

And what is behind the tiger that I am still stalking?

Sleeping with wolves

A dream

Some years ago I had a vivid dream of six kingfishers. It was bright with colour, and when I woke that is what I remembered. The sketch from teh dream lingered as a memory for a couple of years. Now I am trying to make it real.
But all of these owl and kingfisher paintings are just distractions from work. I should be painting cats and working on East of the Sun and West of the Moon.