some thumbnails of my illustrations

some thumbnails of my illustrations
Please click on the links below to view my portfolio ........ Images copyright of Carrie Osborne

Monday 19 November 2012

Wanders in the wintering woods...

The last lingering colours of autumn in the wood... and I feel as wordless as the woods sinking into the quiet of their wintering, so this may be a post of more pictures than words.


These pictures were from the last days of October... now in late November the leaves are a rich copper carpet underfoot and the branches are almost bare. There is the slow undertow of water in earth, entangled roots deep grasping, dying down of bracken and briar. Winter sun low and golden.



 The birch trees are so beautiful in every season, layered in light, delicately trembling...

Birch in late October

 Birch in November floating in layers of gold lace


'I whispered to the birch...
My breath crept up into a world of shudderings.
Was she veiled?
Herself her own fountain
She pretended to be absent from it, or to be becoming air
Filtering herself from her fingertips,
Till her bole paled, like a reflection on water,
And I felt the touch of my own ghostliness...'

- From 'Trees' by Ted Hughes





The Oaks too I love.
Our woods are full of tall ancient oak trees - mossy-coat giants breathing to their own deep slow rhythm.





 



And because I never got around to posting these next ones at the time, here's the woods back in September and some of our adventures in them...



Just had to show you these huge skies.....


Elswyth (above) loves the woods and often wanders her own way singing beneath the spreading boughs...

While Elora finds adventures around every trunk...!

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Our 'Exhibition of Three Generations'

Here comes the first of a couple of catch up posts... this exhibition of ours back in September seems like a long time ago now, but I thought it would be fun to show you some of it! This was our 'Three Generations' exhibition with my Mum, Heather's wonderful big oil paintings, my illustrations and bits and bobs, and of course my two daughter's fantastic artwork too!
I'm not a big fan of those stiff formal preview do's where everyone feels very self conscious and attempts awkward forced conversation... so we thought we'd have some fun instead!
Lots of pretty cakes and nice drinks and live music...

 These pictures below were taken just as my daughters arrived and before any guests came along, it was the first glimpse they had of all their work up on the walls and Elswyth's face tells it all! I loved their reaction...



The music was a family collaboration too - first my Dad and husband Tony played some acoustic blues while all the children began a mass drawing session completely of their own initiative which I thought was brilliant... I hadn't thought of that at all or I would've got in some better things to draw with! But it was great that they all felt fired up to get drawing after looking at all the artwork around them. It was a lovely atmosphere with the guitars and singing accompanying their happy drawing...



 My Dad has a wonderful voice, especially for singing the blues - I will have to film some of his music another time to show you... Later our friend and Tony's bandmate Wendy joined in with some of her songs and even the girl's aunty joined in for a couple near the end too!

 It was difficult to get many pictures while it was thronging with people, so here's some from either before or after of some of the artwork:

Work by Elora and Elswyth aged 5 & 8

 By Elora age 8

Still life paintings by Heather O' Brien
More work from my Mum Heather
I thought I'd show some roughs from my Dummy Book I am hoping to find a publisher for


Some more of my illustration

By Elswyth age 5
Some life drawings of mine...
By Elswyth age 5

Grandma has a well deserved cup of tea when all the guests have gone!



 I think my girls really enjoyed being part of this little show and having their work admired, and it was lovely to put this together as a family to celebrate that creative bond between us all. It really felt like a bright circle, and I felt that my children's book illustration was the perfect bridge between my Mum's fine art painting and my children's wonderful expressiveness. It was fascinating actually...
I learn as much from my children in their art as I hope they do from me and Grandma, and they are very much the inspiration for a great deal of what I do. I love children's art and it was great to kind of validate it in a way by putting it into an art gallery for the general public to see alongside 'grown up' art. I think children's art should be taken just as seriously.

There were some lovely comments from some of the children over the fortnight that came in to look... and a few mums overheard saying things like "...look that little girl's only five, that's the same age as you! You could do that!"
One little boy said to me, "...I wish I could be an artist" and I replied "Everyone can be an artist, but children are the best artists because children have all the stories already inside them. Grown ups have to think a bit harder sometimes to find them...."
But my favourite comment was from a little girl aged 8 who brought her Grampy in to have a look after seeing it advertised  in the paper, she said   "... I love painting and drawing because it makes you see the world in a more delicate way."
Lovely!


Sunday 4 November 2012

'The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones'

I believe I am long overdue to catch up with all you good folks... there's been so much I've meant to post about but time just flows inexorably away, so I think I'll do a few catch up posts to get back into my stride...!

 Halloween night was particularly exciting this year because it saw the premier of the book trailer for my brother-in-law Jack Wolf's debut novel 'The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones' at The Prince Charles Cinema in London as part of Waterstone's event with Audrey Niffenegger and Erin Morgenstern!
We couldn't make it to London for this event but I am so looking forward to the official Book Launch in December...
Here is the brilliant trailer:



And you can hear Jack reading an excerpt from the novel here along with an interview about the writing process and ideas behind the book... really excellent, especially to hear the story in the author's own voice. Its on sale this January if you like what you hear! You can pre-order it here!
 And it so happens that I've been credited for taking the author's photo of Jack on the back sleeve of the book - there's my small involvement! I am so pleased for Jack!

I will return soon with some tales of autumn, but this morning we awoke to an unexpected early breath of winter...

 It was coming down really quite heavily in the morning, but lasted just the day as the sun came out and melted it all away by teatime.


 When we went for a walk across the white fields, the hedgerows had their feet in running steaming streams and our  'Badger lane' was a dripping tunnel with waterfalls cutting right across it...


 And what better to come in from the snow and the wet and settle into a cosy sunday afternoon around the fire...

 Back soon....



Saturday 1 September 2012

A magical night of myth, story and song - with Robin Williamson at Castell Henllys...

It is time to start getting to grips with my next story, one that has been a green, earthen, woodsmoke wreathing glimmer in my mind all year. One part of it, both words and illustrations I have been saving until after I had taken in one particular experience.
Last weekend the opportunity finally came about to do what I have hoped to get around to for a good couple of years - to go and see Robin Williamson perform his entrancing bardic storytellling in the Iron Age Roundhouse at Castell Henllys, amid the fire's glow and the dark smoky rafters.


It was a soft Welsh summer evening, with torches lining the wooded path to the Roundhouses on the hilltop...


I didn't take pictures - it just felt wrong to bring electronic beeps and LCD screens into the hushed darkened space. This was the only one taken in a moment at the very end after the spell was broken...


My hope was to absorb the sounds and atmosphere during the telling and to gather imagery for an illustration. It was quite special, no more than two dozen people sitting quietly around the worn wooden benches in two circles about the hearth, not even whispering, but waiting till all were gathered in from the twilight, eyes adjusting to the darkness within...
Despite the distraction of a wriggly five year old fidgetting beside me I was quickly drawn in by Robin's marvellous voice and the magic of his harp music. By the end he had everyone joining in with phrases of the stories and singing verses along with him and back and forth to him. Wonderful!

I wanted to come away with more than the images in my memory, and I was sitting in the perfect place at the back wall to compose an illustration, so in the gloom I managed a few blindly scrawled sketches by the dim glow of a candle.... I couldn't actually see my page or what I had drawn...!



Later while the images were still strong in my memory I worked one of these up to better capture the amazing atmospheric lighting and the perspective within the roundhouse for future reference...

Sorry about the murky photos...!

I cannot show you any of his stories from that night, but here is a clip from youtube of Robin storytelling at another time and place...



I have some more things to share from our weekend in Wales but I think I will let this post remain alone in the Iron Age. Hope you enjoyed it, I only wish I could have transported you there to hear and see it all with your own eyes, ears and hearts...
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