I had many words to write, but wanting to make the most of the time that I have today, instead put only pictures.

17.28: Wednesday

Back to work

MBF mug, almost finished, painted with water that has danced in a healing bowl.
Great new ritualistic way to begin my working day. Put the bowl, with water in a pool of sunshine and watch the sound make the water dance. Beautiful.

Just waiting now for confirmation on roughs as to which the MBF want for their second design.

Bowl

On the beach today walking with healing bowl mingling the sound of the bowl with the wind and the waves. It is as if the bowl is alive. She loves to be outside and always rises quickest to the music when touched by the wind, resonates the longest. Walked the length of the beach and she sang all the way as I hunted images for the new MBF card. Each year it gets harder as I hope to do better and sell more so that more musicians can draw from their fund, in times of need or to finance learning, making.
Back home with ideas and a peaceful heart, but her song is addictive and I want to hear it again. 

Christmas is coming

Things that are for sale, and might be useful for Christmas.
1. Red winged angel card for Shalom House Hospice Trust. Entitled "Red wings and a crown of hares", 5 cards per pack, £3.00. Inside the words say Seasons Greetings/ Cyfarchion y Tymor. Available from Rachel Davis ( email  llancoed@btinternet.com )
The original painting is also available for sale from The House of Golden Dreams. 

2.  Mugs and cards available from the Musicians Benevolent Fund, and at last the online shop is up and running.

 

3. Books. The best place to buy these is from local independent bookshops, which are always a joy to visit. Signed copies are available online from Solva Woollen Mill, and I will be doing a book signing at the mill on 27th November from 5 pm. I am also working on a drawing of a polar bear and every book bought from the mill, either online or from the mill comes with a raffle ticket. At the end of the evening the winning ticket will be drawn from a hat and the winner gets the drawing.

4. A new painting, Two Cheetahs, Two Cherries. £850, unframed. Available from The House of Golden Dreams.

The passing of time

Jo, with Tom and baby Hannah

I moved to St Davids almost 19 years ago, when I was in the early stages of being pregnant with Tom. In the house down the road we would always hear children laughing, behind high garden walls. When Tom was born we got to know them better. Rowanna seemed tiny, until Tom was born, Jo Jo was the middle child and Noona the oldest and they were all wonderful wild. I still remember them tumbling into the house one day through what was a large catflap in the back door.

Now time has passed. They couldn't fit through a cat flap now and yesterday I went to hear Jo, now Jocelyn, playing piano in St Davids Cathedral. There was a time when she held my Tom, cradled in her small arms. Yesterday she held a whole audience in her hands, filled the cathedral with a beautiful sound, painted images through notes, was wonderful. How amazing it is to see and hear such elegance, all grown up.

It was a while before Jocelyn and I realised that we had a connection other than living as neighbours. I think it was one time that I had asked Anne, Jo's mum, to look after and feed the cats for me when I was away. She noticed a Christmas card lying around the house, a card I had designed for The Musicians Benevolent Fund as a fund raiser. Jo had just received a grant from them to buy a new piano. In the subsequent years she received bursaries during her studies from the MBF. This is such a hard time to be a student, especialy a student of the arts where it is always a struggle to make a living. How wonderful to have such a close connection and see so clearly the benfit of the MBF.

This year's card will be available soon, I am told on 6th September, and the mugs are available now from the MBF. The artwork for the card will be on display and for sale at the Imagine Gallery from 5th September.

My house is full with flowers from the garden and paintings waiting to go to The Imagine Gallery, Long Melford, Suffolk, for exhibition. The preview is 5th September. For more details and invitations please contact John.

Tears, smiles, memories, housework and lists.

I need a list as my focus has meandered off on the pathways of grief.

1. Pick flowers to dress the house. When I look at the windowsills now I see flowers, though I know that some people will only see dirty windows. Soon the sash windows will be refurbished and then they will be clean again, for a while. For now I like my dirty windows. They remind me of this time last year. When I had no roof.

2. Make list.

3. Cross some things off list. ( This was a tip given to me by man in the art shop yesterday to try and give myself a sense of achievement!)

4. Robin Hobb/Lindolm cover roughs x3.

5. Continue with nursery rhymes.

6. Gild partridge and pear.

7. Paint a large owl painting to take to Art in Action to gild.

8. Sweep the studio floor, set the Chicken time Lord and tidy up the studio for 1 hour. 

9. Think about drawing for the rabbit lady.

10. Do powerpoint for school visit and also facebook invite to evening event at school in Hertfordshire.

11. Do artwork for Kids Need to Read Calendar. Rough first.

Outside in the garden ginger cats are curling in sheltered places. In the right hand top of the photo below, where the bench ends, you can just see the jasmine that marks the corner where Kiffer curls beneath. The foxgloves look so beautiful and soon a wave of roses will roof the space. Love-in-the-mist has escaped from the stones and seeded in the grass. He is close to the house.

Today I remembered the time when he climbed up the shelves to try and reach the venison that was defrosting and pulled down and smashed my favorite hand made mugs. I smiled.  The broken china all looked so beautiful smashed on the slate. At the time I was not pleased, but I would give all that and more to have him back here to smash it all again.

MBF, watercolour, song.

Waking early in the morning to the sound of heavy rain. A watercoloured kind of day. At the airfield we arrived just as the rain stopped and the skylarks took to the air to celebrate. Back home tried to avoid the confusion of too many things to do by finishing the Christmas card design for the MBF. A little more work tomorrow and it should be done, then only:

1) Hobb and Lindholm covers x3 by end June

2) Get on with Nursery Rhymes.

3) Christmas card for Shalom House Hospice Trust.

4) Work in prep for Art in Action

5) ???????? otherwise known as the mystery US project that I can't talk about.

6) Writing up Panda story.

7) Roughs for cat book.

8) Prep for school visits to Hertfordshire/St Albans including Federation of Children's Book Groups evening session.

So, I have spent the day smudging a piece of paper with coloured water whilst listening to Jennifer Warnes smudging the air with the Songs of Leonard Cohen.

Things that were left undone.

1. Make list.

2. Address the things on the list from yesterday that were left undone, especially 'paint windows'.

3. Talk to accountant and gather up any further details that are needed in response to yesterdays call from Customs and Revenue VAT office with gentle threat of being visited by VAT inspectors. 

4. Get so lost in painting that the day falls by in beautiful colours.

5. Remember to take car to garage for new tires and headlight check! ( How mundane is that!)
Constantly astonished by the things that get in the way of working.

6. Post hare to Iris and books to Jonathan Mayhew.

7. Phone the elusive and wonderful Vivian French and say thank you.

8. Constantly check porch for boxes of flowers! 

9. Walk dogs.

10. Sit for a while, covered in a thick blanket of ginger purring fur and read The Horsieman ( and work out whether it is possible to go to Scotland for the launch of Duncan Williams's book of seal stories) 

11. Remind people that it is possible to vote for more than one blog (up to three I think) and the cats, having very generously requested that people vote for my blog have noted that I have not returned the favor, so, if you haven't already would you please vote for The Gingers, at the Author Blog Awards, otherwise I may find that fur begins to fly here.

A Weekend.

A weekend spent painting, gilding, walking dogs, walking cats, listening to films ( Once, Stardust, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ), going to a play and hearing The Lovely Somethings for the first time.

Time spent well, I hope.

Two designs in progress.

There is always a stage in a painting with gold leaf where the picture looks ugly.

 

Work in progress

work in progress, for the Musicians Benevolent Fund mug design.

A steady day of painting brought some peace of mind. Yesterday a phone call from John Foley at the Imagine Gallery. John had sold the first of my big hare drawings. Good news as I have more in mind. So The House of Golden Dreams will be parting with a couple of its drawings and making space for more.

Stitching time

All day painting and gathering ideas, listening to Laura Marling and David Hughes. Also wonderful piece on Woman's Hour about quilts, including one that was made by convicts on the voyage to Australia, the Rajah Quilt on loan from the National Gallery of Australia. Among the stitchers was a fifteen year old girl who was transported to the prison colonies for stealing a bolt of cloth. 

Hannah, my daughter, is fifteen.

I have to go to London soon to see my publisher so I hope I can persaude them that we need to meet in the V&A so that I can see it. I can feel a story coming on.

Mug designs for MBF. Some may become notelets. Some may be small paintings.

Slow progress on a rain soaked day.

On the beach today I walk the line where the sea's hand wipes clean the rain stippled sand. The wind bites hard, cold. Tiny shrimp and the smallest fish jewel the border of land and sea and in the waves the silver darling shoal of herrings dart beneath the wrinkled ceiling of the water.

Back home, green tea, sleeping cats, wet dogs, work.

Colouring in

1. Make list.

2.Paint for at least 4 hours.

3. Do roughs for mugs for MBF.

4. Put strange new trifid into pot.

5. Repot rosemary for kitchen window.

6. Walk dogs and cats and sit up high to watch birds fly.

7. Read, just a little.

8. Write up latest part of new story.

9. Think.

10. Supper.

 List for tomorrow.
1. Check list for today and do the rest of the things on it.
2. Paint for at least 5 hours with the very good help of The Time Chicken.

Proofs and The Time Chicken

Slow slow slow progress. The tricks we use to make ourselves work, but I fear mine is leading towards a book as I bow to the rule of The Time Chicken. Set the timer for an hour then sit and paint til the bell goes off. And below the Time Chicken, proofs of The Icebear which at the moment I take as proof that once upon a time I did some painting.

 

In the Tower of Song

This morning the Tower of Song looks like the above. I have my chicken on hand to guard my time and with luck and a fair wind will be spending the day painting, though I do expect to be disturbed by the mask maker's daughter and the wolf gondolier. Meanwhile, stamps.