Working late

When the wash is put on, and the sizing for the gold leaf I find the picture so ugly, before the gold is applied.

Meanwhile I am also working on a small commission, no something I would normally do, but this one appealed to my romantic nature. 

Visitors.

Today, woodpecker, starlings, blackbird, wagtail, chaffinch, bluetits and dunnocks and robins, jackdaw, rook, thrushes and even snipe.

 

And Hannah on a warm perch.

 

Small heavens and long roads.

Two days away, too busy to blog, too busy to read, almost too busy to think. I drove across Wales, picnicked in the grounds of a castle and then across England, to Letworth. I drove along wide roads, Roman roads, narrow twisting turning roads, roads tunnelled by trees and scented by the flowers of elder. I dove high roads and took low roads. On the way there I listened to a cd compiled by Tom Waits of people who have influenced him. I was shocked when "When you wish upon a star" by Cliff Edwards came on, but listened and found that it is indeed so simply beautiful. Good to hear out of context. Love it.

I followed the roads than ran through villages, Cotwold honeyed stone changing to brick and through the middle of Luton where even at 7pm on a Sunday evening shops spilled fruit and people down to the roadside. It took hours. My satnav was old fashioned, a list on a fist.

James and Marie and Gabriel looked after my ragged self and fed me tea and cake and pasta before packing me off to bed. In my room I found a shrine to Moomin.

The next two days were a whir and a blur. Howe Dell School. How can you sum that up? TAlking with Jayne Truran the following day I think she did it for me, so I will try and quote her to the best of my memory. " Howe Dell School is state education at its very finest. That is what all schools should be." So much love of learning, curiosity, energy, respect (teachers for pupils, pupils for teachers, and I suppose I only saw the ones who turned out for the evening event but engaged and wonderful parents too.) It took Debra Massey, the head, almost longer to get me into the school than it took to get the school built, but I am so very glad that I went. Hoping to have an exhibition with them next year, maybe when they have the circus there so that I can brush up on my juggling skills.

And then there was The Frances Coombe Academy the next day and Aniela was fantastic to work with as were all the children. I was very nervous of them at first and worried that they seemed a little shy and hesitant, but we all settled to work and painted together which was great for me, so I hope they enjoyed it. Before I left I saw the sixth form exhibition and the work was strong and astonishing and so accomplished. Both schools are so lucky to have such enthusiastic and committed teachers working there.

At both schools I read The Panda's Child and The Ice Bear and the Panda's Child surprised me because it is quite exciting for a picture book. I frightened a child ( but not too much I hope) and made a very lovely and beautiful woman cry.

Back home along the beautiful lanes of England I stopped at Chipping Norton to call in at a small bookshop I had seen on the net and found myself in Moleskine heaven. Fantastic bookshop. I do love independents. No celebrity trash, just beautiful books. Dangerous places though for the unsuspecting wallet.

All the way home I drove to the marvellous ranting of Eminem. Amazing. Love the verbal dexterity. Don't like the violence. Time to watch 8mile with the Tom and Hannah I think.

At home the garden is confettied with rose petals. Slugs have eaten the small lettice plants but everything else thrives and pea shoots have come up and the beetroot is growing and I found myself peering over garden walls and wanting to paint gardens. I think perhaps I have reached a time in my life when growing things in the garden has become exciting. It is raining now, and I am pleased as the ground has been so dusty dry, and I have work to do.
Shalom did not like my partridge and pear. I have to paint an angel.

Pop goes the weasel.

In search of a weasel we went to Newport and then on to Nevern for a walk in the woods where the bluebells are blushing the riverside walk to a beautiful blue. Home across the hills with weasels and stoats, and we found some lost sheep, but no sign of Little Bo Beep or Little Boy Blue. Back to the drawing board tomorrow. I have weasel, and treacle ( Lyle's Black Treacle in a red and gold tin) and rice.

Now, when I walk up the stairs to my studio I hear a whispered chattering as weasels talk with owls about what sould be done.

 

Commuting to work and scribbles in moleskine.

Back to the drawing board today. Woken early by nightmare about plane crash, then up to the studio to play with roughs. Today I felt like commuting to work, so parked the car at Whitesands and walked home. The sky is the clearest blue, so beautiful, with no trails from planes anywhere, and though I understand that it must be so frustrating for people who want to fly, so aweful for people who have saved to go away, the sky does look very beautiful. And people at Heathrow who live under the flightpaths must have had their first good nights sleep for years. Today the sky looks like it would have looked when my great grandparents and grandparents looked up.

 Halfway home, clear blue.

 Playing with hand drawn type.

A swarm of bees in May

Is worth a load of hay

Golden things

 

 On the beach today.

A flock of jackdaws lifting into sunlight, underwings black gold in the rising sun.

Three pied oystercatchers followed around the rock by three dark shadowbirds that mimick their every move.

Transient drawings by birds' feet, by worm trails, in sand.

A small, fast, beautiful golden dog.

  

  

 

Things I have done today.

1. Walked on the beach, early, in sunshine.

2. Painted some, but not enough.

3. Stacked logs after delivery of two tonnes. So far only 10 wheelbarrows full. Enough for one day.

4. Rediscovered Josh Ritter's Hello Starling on shuffle.

5. Helped to release a jackdaw that had fallen down the chimney in my neighbour's house.

6. Spent the day with a hen wandering round inside my head trying to get out onto paper. Higgeldy Piggeldy, my black hen, she lays eggs for gentlemen.

7. Investigated heraldic unicorns.

Doodle do......

There was an old woman tossed up in a basket seventy times as high as the moon. Where she was going I couldn't but ask it, for in her hand she carried a broom.

Tomorrow I hope to pick up a brush and paint.
On the beach today, wind and rain, sand and feather, a sad tideline of plastic beads.

At home, Martha decided to do a 'Durer's cat' impression. Very good.

Nursery rhyme time

My brain is waterlogged by all the rain falling from the sky. Rain slides down the windows, hammers on the roof, flows down the roads.
Nursery rhyme time. When I was little I had a book, bought for me as a present by the lady next door whose name was Ann.  I was so young that although I could write I couldn't spell my own name. I loved it, with its odd, wide eyed children.

 Some days I struggle to find focus, to settle to work. This is one of those days.

 

Drawing and Dreaming

Cold. Trying to get back into work. Thinking. And while I think, drawing Durer's hare in my sketchbook. The hare was painted over 500 years ago, a brief life caught so beautifully in watercolour. She was beautiful then and is beautiful now, so still, lost in her own hare thoughts.
John Clare had three hares, brought to him as leverets. They lived with him for years, followed him, sat on his knee like the woodcats they are. William Cowper  wrote a beautiful elegy to a hare.

In my studio, with the itunes on shuffle I drew, and then I took the idea of drawing and dreaming a little too seriously. I begin to doubt the wisdom of having a sofa covered in cushions, inviting, comfortable, in my studio. 

Robin came into my studio, where I had told him I was working, caught me in the act of working in my sleep.

The wonderful world of Moleskine sketch books

I have been nosing around in other people's sketchbooks, a thing I love to do. Have loved Moleskines for ages but have only used them for writing in for a while now. I have this compulsion whenever I see them in shops to buy one. They are so satisfying, in shape and weight and paper. Small books of perfection. I have a Moleskine page a day diary that I use to write in most evenings, take something from each day that has been good and use a few words to hold it is time. And when I was at college I drew all of the time. So now and I am drawing again, on the smooth, cream paper bound in black. In my studio there are shelves of Moleskines, most with writing in, some new, all that are used with something precious kept safe in the pocket at the back, an angel, a feather, the card from someone I met somewhere, bus tickets, train tickets, theatre and cinema tickets.
And here there are other people's books to look through.
More examples here