Troubador

I listen to music while I paint. Today I was pulled up short and left breathless by this song, Hollow Point, by Chris Wood. It makes what happened in a tube station in London close up and personal. Not a statistic, but a young man with a head full of dreams walking down a road on a summer's day. It could have been your son, it could have been mine. 
I am so glad that there are people like Chris Wood in the world. Thank you Mike Harding, for playing it.

Not so much 'Women Who Run With the Wolves'....

........as girl who reads to the wolves. Still trying to decide what she is reading as they curl around her, listening, dreaming, in a nest of feral protection.

Wolves

Today I have captured a dragon and begun to paint some wolves.

Almost time

Some time ago I put a competition on my blog. There is still time to enter, just a couple of days. Meanwhile could "Anonymous" who posted the very first answer, "truth", please send me an email with his or her address.
Thank you.

Walking, working, today.

In a field of golden stubble, a flock of Canada geese. They lift, then circle as we move through the field, wings whistling. The sea is unnaturally still. It flicks and folds on stones, the shallow breath of a sleeping sea.

Each year, at this time, I make a pilgrimage to the beach. The path is heather scented. No seals yet, but I think I hear their calls on the edge of the wind. Maybe it is only a memory, and echo, a trick of the sea.
I sit for a while and try to gather words.

This is one of my favorite places to work. There are ravens, chough, sunshine.
The sound of the water changed as I sat hunting words and time passed. The tide had turned. In the sheltered cove a silver seal floated. It is so quiet, so hushed that even from the cliffs you can hear the seals breath.
The dogs get tired from waiting. We walk home.

As I stand again to watch the water a peregrine flies past then circles, stoops over the water.
Beauty.

Book Launch

Almost finished 'I am Cat'. Just a few words to gather up now. My mind has begun to search for wild dogs. 

Meanwhile The Cat and the Fiddle should be in the warehouse now in the UK, so, enterprising book sellers, contact Frances Lincoln and get stock early.

At Solva Woollen Mill we are having a book launch on 16th September. For those far away you can still pre-order signed books and with each book purchased you get a raffle ticket and a chance to win a drawing that was a prelim from the book. One book, one ticket.

Contact Solva Mill if you would like an invitation to the launch.

Night, light and twilight walking.

Yesterday I walked in twilight for the first time in a while and watched as the world dropped into monochrome. Moths, pale and fragile as ash moved in the lane that still held warm air from the day.

Tonight I walked in the dark. In the east the sweep of light from the lighthouse illuminated low cloud in a pulsing rhythm. To the west all starlight was eaten by the ink dark cloud. From each a bridge of glorious lights, too deep to imagine, arched. In this time of the dark moon even the gingercat looks black as he walks beside me.

Film of the seals from yesterday, swimming, on land and calling.

As well as sketching yesterday I did take my camera, so have uploaded some film clips of seals. I love the seal who played in the sheltered pool.

If you listen you can hear them calling.

Seals, sunshine, sketching 2

When I was younger I would draw all the time. Now for the first time I am learning how to look sharper, better. Leaning about how drawing is memory, is seeing, is learning. Simple lines capture shape.

Almost finished.

The painting of the puma has been leaning against the wall in my studio for a while. I was going to scrap it. Then a family came in to wander around and look at things and the father said something about the painting. Out of all of the things that were there. It pulled me up, made me look again, and so now 'I am Cat' is almost finished.

Meanwhile while at Art in Action I got together with Catherine Hyde, Hannah Willow and Tamsin Abbott. There was much laughter, but also a plan. So now we have the beginnings of a small group. We will exhibit together, at least once a year we hope. In the meantime you can wander through our studios and see our work on facebook at The Sisterhood of Ruralists.