Calendar

Jane and I have been working on a calendar to take to Art in Action for sale. The calendar will be an 18 month one, starting in July and going through to December 2012. The print run will be limited, partly depending on how many advanced orders we get and the price is £25 a calendar. Each will be signed, numbered and doodled on.
Each page has a painting or drawing and a short piece of writing. The paper is a beautiful heavy paper, the print quality excellent and they are spiral bound. Images above are jpegs from a pdf so the quality is compromised. The size is 11 3/4 inches by 16 1/2 inches ( for those who bought the cat calendar way back it is the same format).
So, the long preamble is by way of saying that if you would like a calendar please email me at jackie@jackiemorris.co.uk and reserve one.
There may be more at Christmas running for a further 18 months, if this run is successful.
And there will be cafepress calendars of both paintings and cats at some point, but the handmade nature of these makes them more desirable for collectors. 
( Hopefully we will also have moon names and phases on also and maybe dates for eclipses and Perseids etc. Useful dates, rather than bank holidays etc.)

 

Love at first site

It began some years ago. And it was love at first site. 

To be fair it can be said that unlike with some affairs the passion only grew, from the first days of the orange clam shell to the macbook to the iMac. 

And then she met the iPad. So slim, so seductive and offering such magic.

But very soon things began to fall apart. Years of living on a dial up connection meant that updates had been impossible. The iMac was old, sad, tired. The iPad wouldn't connect as iTunes was an antique and she railed against the foolishness of this, one purchase too far. It say there on the shelf, beautiful but useless. Until Julia came to her aid.

It seemed that all that was needed was to replace the tiger with a snow leopard ( the irony of this was not lost on her).

Everything was backed up in case of emergencies, the snowleopard was purchased and with fear in the heart, despite the gentle encouragement of Julia at Apple.com, she installed the snow leopard.

And now the iPad worked and the iMac was like a new creature. It was as if a caterpillar had woven a chrysalis and then hours later emerged as a beautiful butterfly. The iPad came to life in her hands and love blossomed.

And in between times the painting of mountain lions for I am Cat progressed.

 

 

Tuesday

In the early morning garden beautiful things were kissed by the dew.

Genius

On the way home I stopped at Jaffe and Neale for presents for my children and my dad. I do love real bookshops, though I walked out with heavy bags and a light wallet. And needless to say I managed to find a thing or two for myself.
One of my favorite illustrators and authors, Shaun Tan, is on this side of the world soon for the launch of his film of The Lost Thing. So, how many favorites can you have in a short space of time? Well, the story and pictures are by Shaun Tan, the music by Tim Minchin. And I bought The Bird King, published by Templar. Beautiful. It has got me doodling again as I am more and more drawn into drawing!
And then I picked up an older copy, of Tales From Suburbia. This is one I dip in and out of like a swallow.

I always pick up shopping lists in supermarkets when they have been left in trolleys. Always try and work out who left them, how they live, what they do. Curiosity. But here Shaun Tan has done so much more with that. Read these, words and pictures.

The Illustration Cupboard has an exhibition to coincide with his visit. It will be in August. It will be astonishing.

London

Before I went to London I played with my new desk, making a space for it and myself in a jumble of rubble and stored things. It now looks like a shrine to Robin Hobb.
On my return I found ruby jewels in the garden.
And London? Well. The Pop Up Festival began this week and they have so much planned. It is ambitious, expansive, inclusive, exciting, enticing, informing, playful and much much more.

 

I met and talked to children in a library, The West Library, in Islington ( and in my mind, Neverwhere by Neil Gaimon). Then the next day I went to The Grant Museum and as a result am now haunted by a jar of moles. So many stories tied up in this place. I think for me the most disturbing thing I saw was the Tasmanian Tiger skin and skeleton. For the children the most disturbing thing was probably me telling them how polar bears lick the ice clean after a kill. Perhaps a bit too graphic and I don't think any of them will ever ask for one of those slush puppy things you get in newsagents again.

 

And meanwhile I found that my garden obsession could continue as Robin and I wandered a wonderful city allotment while Robin's brother Jeremy picked strawberries for our supper.

 

I have so much work to do. And supper calls. In the oven, butternut squash, bright golden, roasting to be made into soup, and beetroots also roasting in their deep red for a beetroot and yoghurt creation tomorrow.

A test, a competition, a question: or, what is in the bottle?

When I visit schools I take with me a number of 'props'. One is a necklace that I wear most of the time anyway, a silver bottle with red stones. At some point in the day a child will ask me, "what is in the bottle, please?"

My reply is to ask what they think is it it before I reply. This is a test, though not of the usual kind. There is no wrong answer, and my answer is always different.

Once it held kisses my children had poured in when I was going away to work for a few days, so that if I was lonely away from them, if I missed them, I could un-stopper the bottle and let out the small flutters of kisses. ( And what does a kiss look like, miss?)

Once it held the 6 o'clock misty morning air of a Venetian square.

So, my question to you is, what is in the bottle.

It is a competition.

There will be a prize, which will include an (elaborately) signed copy of The Cat and the Fiddle.

Post your comment below or leave a comment with a link to your blog and write a blog post about what is inside ( don't forget to link to the specific blog post).

I will decide the winner as I choose, depending on the post that I like the most, be it short, long or visual.

Please spread the word about the competition by blogging with links, on facebook and stumble, tumble twitter diggit etc.

Let your imagination guide you, and your wishes and desires.

( Will decide on September 8th- and link back to this posting)

Beautiful Distractions

The day began with walking the dogs ( and Elmo). I then became trapped in the garden. I was distracted by:

potting seeds, salad leaves and coriander,

 

courgettes,

planting tomatoes and watching the butternut squash grow,

 

hanging up washing in sunshine,

butterflies,

 

Tirion's flowers, planted in my garden by her dad, because they are her favorite and reminded her of him.

Finally I made it into my studio where I drew for a while, before becoming distracted by blogging, taking in the dry washing, planting out the baby leeks and weeding one of the raised beds.

Bags of bags

New bags have been added to the House of Golden Dreams Gift Shop. To buy go to cafepress.co.uk/JackieMorrisArtist.
Or go to cafepress.co.uk and do a search for Jackie Morris.

Lynx

Distractions no 4

I met Kevin and Claire through rowing. I think we had moved to the area at a similar time. Kevin was running Sigma and I talked about getting a van and having it wrapped and he said he wanted things for his campsite and we wandered off in different directions.
We came back together again. 
Kevin and Claire have the most beautiful camp site in Abercastle.
Now they also have a yurt and teepee manufacturing company.


And we have done this:

The images are from Starlight Sailor, written by James Mayhew, published in US and UK by Barefoot Books. 

Not quite finished, as Kevin is dressing the yurt up like a dream, but some time in the next couple of weeks I will get more photos. And I am looking forward to working on more with Kevin and Gary and Claire. And teepees. Because Kevin is giving me something I have always wanted, a teepee and next year, with his help, I will dress it in a new skin, with wolves and hares.

Meanwhile I am looking forward to spending a night or two in a yurt just reading and listening to the wind in the leaves and the birds in the trees, watching the light fade out of a day and back in again and seeing the stars and the turning world.