Working away from home.

Working in my new studio space for the first day. I found that as soon as I sat down to work the conversation that takes place between myself and the paper was the same as it is anywhere. I could hear people around, but Radio 4 kept focus away from being disturbed and it was warm and light.

The only thing was the day finished at 5. When I looked up I found that the sky was falling down! Rain so hard everywhere was flooding, but I had been lost on the wings of dragons.

I only had my iPhone with me, but here are some photos.

I learned a few things.

1. I whistle while I work.

2. I swear too much at my paintings.

3. Best not to burst into random out of tune singing.

4. All that matters is the spaces between head, heart and drawing board.

5. I work on a lot of different pieces of work at the same time. ( I have another half finished piece here in my studio at home that needs to be taken in.)

 Above and below, the studio space.

 A painting that has waited too long to be finished.

 Above and below, two new strawberry foxes; or, something to settle me in.

 Above: wolf drawing, waiting. Kingfishers, almost finished. Below, my boots, Robin's rug.

 My desk in my studio with the beginnings of the cover for Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb. Soon there will be gold leaf.

Spit, Fente, Sintara and Heeby.

Meanwhile, outside, rain.

Robin Hobb, City of Dragons cover art.

Watercolour and red gold leaf.

List of a few things that need to be done

1. Wash up
2. Tidy up
3. Paint  some, but not enough.
4. Edit manuscript
5. Pot up tomato plants
6. Weed beds
7. Walk dogs some, but not far enough. Instead of walking I took a book and sat on the hill and read a chapter of A Clash of Kings
8. Stop doing things and listen to birdsong
9. Sit in the sun and think
10. Make coffee for Claire.

nb. Try and avoid picking up George RR Martin's A Clash of Kings until much later in the day.( Failed!) But I did paint a small dragon for friend's van.

And I did hear from Jane Johnson that there are two new Robin Hobb books that she has manuscripts for that will be needing new covers. City of Dragons and Blood of Dragons.

The moon, a dragon, my desk

A while back a friend from afar asked if I would do a drawing for her to be turned into a tattoo. Now she wears a dragon tattoo and it looks beautiful. Such a strange connection to have with another person, having them as a canvas. Eve's dragon holds a moon and a small star.

Drawing a dragon

Norfolk Libraries posted a short film clip of me drawing Little Dragon Small at their event for the book awards. Try as hard as I can I couldn't get the share link to work so click on the link to the library to see the film.

On the beach this morning.

A curlew, lone and calling across the sea.
Sand patterns drawn by the water.
Sun splintered light, fractured by wind and wave.
A pied oystercatcher with a clown bright beak.
Mirror water showing the sky her beautiful face.

Summoning inspiration

The older I get the more I realise that either
a) I walk a fine line between creativity and madness or
b) I have the courage to do things I wouldn't have done when younger.

So, I took my healing bowl up to the top of the hill and played. The sound of the bowl out in the wild is something that would lift the heart and soul of any who hear it. To see pictures travel across to the cat blog.
I have to paint. 

So, I painted all day Sunday and then I sat back and looked and what I had painted was ugly and clumsy so now I have to do it all again. Only this time, better.

 

 

 

 

So far today I have found a moth, and a wonderful bog where soon there will be a river of irises, helped to organise schedule for October when I will be at the Norfolk Childrens Book Centre and Madelaine Lindleys in Manchester and Southend on Sea and the Starlit Festival in Hackney. Beautiful moth, soft winged and sleepily blinded by daylight.

The Star Princess sings a lullaby.

Weasels are making me tidy the house as they do not like the chaos that has formed over months of working in my studio. For want of places to put things my door has become a pinboard.

Meanwhile another spread is finished and I have people wanting books and it is time to move quickly onto the next spread.

Baby's bed's a silver moon

Sailing o'er the sea,

Sailing o'er a sea of sleep

While the stars go by.

Sail baby sail,

Far across the sea,

But don't forget to come

Back home again to me.

For some reason this painting came through very differently from what I had expected when the words first ran around in my head. The woman is from Tell Me a Dragon, the star princess, grown up and fallen in love and waiting for her sailor husband to return while she sings their child to sleep. It is odd how sometimes these characters take on a life of their own and spin their own tale. I should imagine that few people will notice where she came from. A secret that passes from book to book.

So many thing to do with writing is simply asking questions. George Mackay Brown called it 'the interogation of silence'. Even though she is a character that I created out of coloured water I wonder, does she ever set foot on the earth or live only in the sky? Where did they meet? Does she still have her dragon? What is her name?

Too much to do.

1. Help cats with their blog.

2. Work on roughs to fill them empty space. Lavender's blue, a little nut tree, the cat that went to London.

3. Draw out A Swarm of Bees in May.

4. Take Tom to get his lift to the Scilly Isles for World Gig Championship.
Oops. Dropped Tom off then five minutes later heard a strange sound. Mobile phone ringing. "Where are my tickets for the steamship to Scilly's?" I am a bad bad mother. Boy and tickets untied and many thanks to Andy for being more on the ball than me!

5. Go to Celtic Vision in Narberth to retrieve camera from the Celtic Camera Shaman who has put camera through the wash.

6. Read, for at least 30 minutes.

7. Try and catch a giant panda.

8. Take the black dog of doubt that snarls and growls in your head out for a walk and run him ragged until you know again that you can do this, all of this, even if parts of the list roll over onto another day, that you will find images for every blank page in the nursery rhymes book, that the words will gather for the story of the lost child and the giant panda, that an idea will form in the mind's eye for the Christmas card design, for the cards, for the book cover.

9. Watch the swallows fly in and out of the barns at Glyn's.

10. Make list.
11. Get packing for print and send the bear and a couple of books to the lovely lady of song across the water.


Already distracted from my list of 'to do todays', at the end of this post I am going to put a 'done' list!

Meanwhile, walking the dogs on the airfield I tried to hold thoughts in my head but cowslips and day dreams wandered away with my good intentions.

There were footprints again, of a diaphonous creature. Perhaps it is a Silk Dragon. Perhaps the Silk Dragon sleeps during the day, feeding only on the songs of the skylarks that fill the sky today. Perhaps at night the Silk Dragon wakes and protects the slumbering larks in their nests of tall grass, from weasel and stoat, from owl and from fox, so that they rest and can sing the following day. 

Perhaps I should do some work now, but then maybe this is what books are made from, tha random daydreams of a wandering mind.

Almost ran a black dog over on the way back from St Davids. Ah, the irony! Glad I didn't.

Things that I have done today.
1. Signed vat forms and sent cheque in the post. Now maybe, just maybe, I am up to date and life can get back to normal, but it has been a long and expensive experience that I have not enjoyed.
2. Paid electricity bill.
3. Walked dogs, heard skylarks, watched swallows, heard grasshopper warblers in twilight.
4. Made discs of image Linda M Smith and put in the post and listened to Artemisia.
5. Gone to supermarket and bought stuff.
6. Washed up and made supper and fed remains of nettles to dogs.
7. Mused on dragons with footprints of silken thread soaked with early morning dew.
8. Tidied up a bit, but not much.
9. Made another list and mused on all of the things on the earlier list that are not yet crossed out.
10. Had heart lifted by the silhoette of woman riding a bear across a twilit star dotted sky above my beautiful house.

Findings, looking.

Early morning painting, thinking. 

1. Make list.

2. Stretch paper.

3. Paint  for at least 6 hours.

4. Walk dogs to a different beach.
Walking the cliffs in Pembrokeshire, the air like cold silk on the skin, sky like the underbelly of a fish and wimbrel, cormorant, oystercatchers fighting the wind, ravens and a seal watching as I sit among thrift, seacampion and squil to write about pandas. Then home to lions and unicorn and bees.

5. Roughs, for Christmas cards, for nursery rhymes.

6. Take children to school, collect same children, take Tom rowing, sit for a while and watch the sea.

7. Don't forget to look for the poetry in every day life.

A small clutch of dragon eggs, from a Flower Dragon.

St George's Day.

The day was so beautiful that it took a while to drive from Robin's house to my parents' house in The Cotswold Hills.

It was St George's Day. As a lover of dragons I have never been a fan of St George. I drove a small detour to photograph the war memorial at Stanton. On the back, in dappled light, an inscription.

These men from what had been a small, close village died in France, Eygpt and Gallipoli. This is where pacifism becomes confused for me as I can only feel grateful that they died so that I can have the future that I have and yet I hate the folly of war. Sometimes, perhaps, there is no alternative.

In my father's garden the light shines through a beautiful red tulip.