tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13551497427190606542024-03-05T00:06:31.603-08:00Windsongs & WordhoardsThe creative paths of an aspiring Writer & Illustrator...Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-47905114609327636802013-04-05T16:45:00.000-07:002013-04-05T16:49:56.795-07:00For David.... <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikd0pSxvcOwdQB7WVCtXoer_kXWKrrJpH3WatMdqBJAVQ-ccrc_nqS3KqntCy7j3VhERtCOgOhiFuAQoX52iSz-0ladLFKDkj6hyd7Idq15O6wbyP-17OdN0qTZsYn1FximIcyp7oWl0Y/s1600/firstthingsfirst_popularvote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikd0pSxvcOwdQB7WVCtXoer_kXWKrrJpH3WatMdqBJAVQ-ccrc_nqS3KqntCy7j3VhERtCOgOhiFuAQoX52iSz-0ladLFKDkj6hyd7Idq15O6wbyP-17OdN0qTZsYn1FximIcyp7oWl0Y/s400/firstthingsfirst_popularvote.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our friend David Fisher with his painting 'First Things First'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Today we said goodbye to our good friend David and the overflowing crowd in the church was testament to just how many people held a place in their hearts for him. He was such a generous, inspiring, radiant man...<br />
" You only meet someone like David once in a lifetime" Said one mutual longtime friend of David's earlier this week, and today another mutual friend, both fellow artists, added "It was a priveledge to have had the chance to know him." Another artist friend said of their art group "He was the glue that held us together."<br />
As you can see he meant a great deal to a great many and we will all miss him.<br />
David had been battling with cancer for the last four years and the dignity and courage with which he faced it was just awe inspiring. I have such admiration for the strength he and his wife Brenda fought it with together. He never once complained, never gave in to it - even when he lost the use of his arm, as a painter he just said with a wry determined smile "I'll have to find another way to paint that's all."<br />
<br />
The painting 'First Things First' above was his last finished painting and won 'The Most Popular Exhibit' at the 2012 Royal Bath & West of England show, which was the ninth time he had won the award.<br />
He was a very prolific artist with a forty plus year career in painting, often on a vast scale, and it is so hard to choose which of his wonderful paintings to show you, so I will just show you some of our favourites... and here one of his most powerful...<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBjdgrVKLR4U7JgaASkzEBSYbc0ubgmKA1OUIdQE4M-zwT41FymV5ODI9izwVQqtIeXLUgHYx9xiZGKaPvWK5qsMIe8GCWXVXQ0d7VostwGJ1SgPuYuSnrH3MwTxU0WMkqqfKdX07X2nE/s1600/selfportrait1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBjdgrVKLR4U7JgaASkzEBSYbc0ubgmKA1OUIdQE4M-zwT41FymV5ODI9izwVQqtIeXLUgHYx9xiZGKaPvWK5qsMIe8GCWXVXQ0d7VostwGJ1SgPuYuSnrH3MwTxU0WMkqqfKdX07X2nE/s320/selfportrait1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Why Me?' self portrait by David Fisher</td></tr>
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<div class="bodytext">
<br />
<span class="bodytext">In David's own words: </span></div>
<div class="bodytext">
<span class="bodytext">"This
self portrait was my first piece of work in 16 months
after being diagnosed with cancer in the Summer of 2009.</span> It was on show in the Bath Society
of Artists 106th Summer Exhibition at the Victoria Art
Gallery, Bath."</div>
<div class="bodytext">
And to me this portrait says everything in brushstrokes of all that I never heard him speak aloud. </div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGmu_hxmfH7IsNA_lhSe15Q4R7vBUBnxa_NBKWuIDh86yEa_VvIprNHWLZAKU74Y7s5qikjD7TDsxWvJQpbt3slomjok0CTq4Lm_85vmq7771kRFVJxAlS_el_QjMeFVLBDQsQPQFcv9c/s1600/tramodol1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGmu_hxmfH7IsNA_lhSe15Q4R7vBUBnxa_NBKWuIDh86yEa_VvIprNHWLZAKU74Y7s5qikjD7TDsxWvJQpbt3slomjok0CTq4Lm_85vmq7771kRFVJxAlS_el_QjMeFVLBDQsQPQFcv9c/s400/tramodol1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">' 2.36 am Tramadol Nights ' By David Fisher </td></tr>
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<br />
And another powerfully autobiographical painting, again in David's own words:<br />
<div class="bodytext">
"This was a scene that greeted
me many many times during the broken sleep pattern
I experienced whilst recovering from the surgery
that was necessary in my fight against cancer. An
image I felt compelled to record."</div>
This painting won 'The Chairman’s Choice'
at 2011 Royal Bath and West of England Show Art
Exhibition.<br />
<br />
One of David's proudest acheivements was to win the 2008 Holborne Museum Portrait Prize with this portrait below of fellow artist Philip Ledbury - himself fighting leukaemia. He had said that winning this he felt he'd finally been recognised as an artist... He was ever humble about his own skill!<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFoDanF865M5lC-s3kaxMYxRSyVix-hl66JD8I2cXasvtHtt8GSxcz5Clwx4L-sy3AWmfcQAhzhMlSwR0GFzw2BbleobwhDKDTv1NBUy0exF5Q1nT2yyPI0dlMz7biuc6vp9WhJY9YL_A/s1600/dead-man-posing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFoDanF865M5lC-s3kaxMYxRSyVix-hl66JD8I2cXasvtHtt8GSxcz5Clwx4L-sy3AWmfcQAhzhMlSwR0GFzw2BbleobwhDKDTv1NBUy0exF5Q1nT2yyPI0dlMz7biuc6vp9WhJY9YL_A/s400/dead-man-posing.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Dead Man Posing' By David Fisher - Winner of the 2008 Holborne Museum Portrait Prize</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.davidfisherartist.co.uk/pages/philipledbury.htm" target="_blank">'Dead Man Posing' </a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Again here are some of David's words about this painting:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Philip has only recently come into my life through art. A man
diagnosed three years ago with leukaemia, his passion for life
is inspiring. His desire to live life to the full...'quality not
quantity'... is a favourite saying of his, combined with a wicked
sense of humour, was my inspiration to paint his portrait. A fitting
record of the man."</div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0mcCq8hqIdNkj7RBVptkfJKuQnOPUEW7HqWeLNWrF-aTCVBV4VP3fMRpRJigvGoP4GUb2Tp23ttcjJUJQx3mxsaBTi2jY-IKZQMKQ9fy47Zza2gU9XMjgd00MAQVgwKqyGS8V3vBOjIk/s1600/studio1stephcole.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0mcCq8hqIdNkj7RBVptkfJKuQnOPUEW7HqWeLNWrF-aTCVBV4VP3fMRpRJigvGoP4GUb2Tp23ttcjJUJQx3mxsaBTi2jY-IKZQMKQ9fy47Zza2gU9XMjgd00MAQVgwKqyGS8V3vBOjIk/s400/studio1stephcole.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David with his Holborne Museum Prize portrait of actress Stephanie Cole</td></tr>
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This was the commission portrait he painted for the prize which is now part of the Holborne Museum's collection, of actress Stephanie Cole painted rehearsing lines backstage. He called this 'Once upon a time..' and I think it captures so much spirit of the woman beneath the actress and of the atmosphere of theatre.<br />
<br />
"<span class="bodytext">I chose Stephanie for my sitter as to that time there were no
female portraits in the collection, she has strong links with
The Theatre Royal in Bath and The Bristol Old Vic, and resided
very close to my home..<br />
After our first meeting backstage at The Theatre Royal I felt
that this would be the most appropriate location as, not only
did Stephanie feel completely at home there, it was obvious that
theatre was in her blood and her comment that the most evocative
words in any story are " Once upon a time…"<br />
Hence the title of my painting."</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0txD2Y-aHVYJ8SVLjdG9De5AITHHmzHmZCnruwih_1PttEXPHaOM4MnQoz1ctKrXgzALUPoyXW2cj9sQTsV3u3xq58B4JSr1d9BeOowSo3rstkouGxpmJotdVGOhw9r2IxCE3Tsm0RM/s1600/stephaniecole250.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0txD2Y-aHVYJ8SVLjdG9De5AITHHmzHmZCnruwih_1PttEXPHaOM4MnQoz1ctKrXgzALUPoyXW2cj9sQTsV3u3xq58B4JSr1d9BeOowSo3rstkouGxpmJotdVGOhw9r2IxCE3Tsm0RM/s400/stephaniecole250.jpg" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Once upon a time...' By David Fisher - Holborne Museum Prize commission</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are so many paintings and I wanted to talk about David 'our friend' rather than make it a biography, but he was a supreme artist and his paintings deserve to be shared. Here are some more favourites...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUqeSm0Fj6aiCCK6IwZc0L7P1wxUbmJQu1dqToVqEnGJy0rAaPw1MLY_4uMp2fztgEgDgEhStHXekl_iwXGn_Xg6GuBXzRPJCYJYn5D-Tjzr_-Hm5dPJw8QTj1H9OHyxiA0SO9svU7HDg/s1600/friendorfoe-md.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUqeSm0Fj6aiCCK6IwZc0L7P1wxUbmJQu1dqToVqEnGJy0rAaPw1MLY_4uMp2fztgEgDgEhStHXekl_iwXGn_Xg6GuBXzRPJCYJYn5D-Tjzr_-Hm5dPJw8QTj1H9OHyxiA0SO9svU7HDg/s1600/friendorfoe-md.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Friend or Foe' By David Fisher <span class="bodytext">"Most Popular Picture in Show"<br />
Royal Bath and West Show 1998 <br />
Finalist - "Not the Turner Prize" 2003</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9LLZAruenOuqAd_BWQCVKJQBUUgR0sztSYS8roNtFUmu_K0dkWHjfoONc_oehlR70c2006UkNnDeUPx3nMicImuc8M1v01ykY-lHyOmgLvEwndxSJ9RusXisd-NVoXOyP0rrmokUAFo0/s1600/grandturk-md.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9LLZAruenOuqAd_BWQCVKJQBUUgR0sztSYS8roNtFUmu_K0dkWHjfoONc_oehlR70c2006UkNnDeUPx3nMicImuc8M1v01ykY-lHyOmgLvEwndxSJ9RusXisd-NVoXOyP0rrmokUAFo0/s400/grandturk-md.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Grand Turk' By David Fisher <span class="bodytext">"Most Popular Picture in Show"<br />
Royal Bath and West Show 2006<br />
<a href="http://www.davidfisherartist.co.uk/pages/link.htm"><br /></a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJv_eH4XyC-GpkO0EjyPi6I7SQUNUrXHwjGcbbp9FHZvJTkH5UV-8rGyKKUeyjq6n4PCJDhZk9hyetwE5Z3frglIeey7x0JBr8exmq82Khr53cMq8jC0eE0de3m_Rmw-BBAvZxTiUJgs/s1600/joyssummer-md.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJv_eH4XyC-GpkO0EjyPi6I7SQUNUrXHwjGcbbp9FHZvJTkH5UV-8rGyKKUeyjq6n4PCJDhZk9hyetwE5Z3frglIeey7x0JBr8exmq82Khr53cMq8jC0eE0de3m_Rmw-BBAvZxTiUJgs/s320/joyssummer-md.jpg" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'The Joys of an English Summer' By David Fisher <span class="bodytext">"Most Popular Picture in Show"<br />
Royal Bath and West Show 2005</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKePElE4uDbc96UbXij_GfMDiprpdZ_-Bf-orW1kJzdNUGLHC5vHKMztyvuBV009LU2DtXNe1ON3mWGY0rjehvpyFF4Yd9kd1Qep74_Cjrx8pd0N54d25msPlmJ_tx7WhgnRBjSgEafFY/s1600/onlookers-md.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKePElE4uDbc96UbXij_GfMDiprpdZ_-Bf-orW1kJzdNUGLHC5vHKMztyvuBV009LU2DtXNe1ON3mWGY0rjehvpyFF4Yd9kd1Qep74_Cjrx8pd0N54d25msPlmJ_tx7WhgnRBjSgEafFY/s1600/onlookers-md.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'The Onlookers' By David Fisher <span class="bodytext">Won the “Most Popular Picture in
Show”<br />
at the Royal Bath and West of England Show 2004</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0txD2Y-aHVYJ8SVLjdG9De5AITHHmzHmZCnruwih_1PttEXPHaOM4MnQoz1ctKrXgzALUPoyXW2cj9sQTsV3u3xq58B4JSr1d9BeOowSo3rstkouGxpmJotdVGOhw9r2IxCE3Tsm0RM/s1600/stephaniecole250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLFbXh3hyphenhyphen7pAxR8S36EqxF9xg7dekD0JpzHEIc5Yxarb-M9Md8kkbqVI9EMlBAAlhQSnosUzpnQ_ItiSW5azgrt3nsSOFIF4UH70dE9-xH4GAoiXLcPt7tqZ4NxPbbHxHbx_Np6qdncLA/s1600/waiting-their-turn-md.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLFbXh3hyphenhyphen7pAxR8S36EqxF9xg7dekD0JpzHEIc5Yxarb-M9Md8kkbqVI9EMlBAAlhQSnosUzpnQ_ItiSW5azgrt3nsSOFIF4UH70dE9-xH4GAoiXLcPt7tqZ4NxPbbHxHbx_Np6qdncLA/s320/waiting-their-turn-md.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Waiting their turn' By David Fisher</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBjdgrVKLR4U7JgaASkzEBSYbc0ubgmKA1OUIdQE4M-zwT41FymV5ODI9izwVQqtIeXLUgHYx9xiZGKaPvWK5qsMIe8GCWXVXQ0d7VostwGJ1SgPuYuSnrH3MwTxU0WMkqqfKdX07X2nE/s1600/selfportrait1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirksmTxBTOlyKdQ8W2hCb47tmL9hPD7XufXOox6czI43luCn0_RxdWuSNUoog3EYz30mR1IjhLaAMKMX4_oO1FOEzZtS-nywLdzeppWRo7ofMhyxLyBER2xxJjhwFDUE5LFZV3t9zKjTk/s1600/newacquaintance520.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirksmTxBTOlyKdQ8W2hCb47tmL9hPD7XufXOox6czI43luCn0_RxdWuSNUoog3EYz30mR1IjhLaAMKMX4_oO1FOEzZtS-nywLdzeppWRo7ofMhyxLyBER2xxJjhwFDUE5LFZV3t9zKjTk/s400/newacquaintance520.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'New Acquaintance' By David Fisher</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZHEUCe8aYXu9lUQszS2Gw57FeGwF1kjxwngOLTGb-V8rQDX9lB-N0R5mxaz_gkvUmRzy7Kk0b9G4darF9aHZjVGBM_J9Ru8K8CtdeoC7RPiiXIo6JHWOBkdRUvC65YeJ9gT453_1GZs/s1600/tru-md.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZHEUCe8aYXu9lUQszS2Gw57FeGwF1kjxwngOLTGb-V8rQDX9lB-N0R5mxaz_gkvUmRzy7Kk0b9G4darF9aHZjVGBM_J9Ru8K8CtdeoC7RPiiXIo6JHWOBkdRUvC65YeJ9gT453_1GZs/s400/tru-md.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Tru' By David Fisher</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtj6zZNtOkoUTEKmw-1Bau9jC9l_DPtZs5yZdLNZ0-9vWF2Ik34zqFU77ejVDdi1m7cVlEbNDXeAqvwsSCqqQS4IpvQHi6t-vhJ94dTOuRiNRedJUXLNc-ADolf7BqhnQAr-zw7oRDJJo/s1600/dfisher2003.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtj6zZNtOkoUTEKmw-1Bau9jC9l_DPtZs5yZdLNZ0-9vWF2Ik34zqFU77ejVDdi1m7cVlEbNDXeAqvwsSCqqQS4IpvQHi6t-vhJ94dTOuRiNRedJUXLNc-ADolf7BqhnQAr-zw7oRDJJo/s400/dfisher2003.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David with his painting 'Dreaming of Cats' <span class="bodytext">"Most Popular Picture in Show"<br />
Royal Bath and West Show 2003 </span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">David Fisher </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">21st July 1946 - 21st March 2013 </span></div>
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<br />Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-8645085697535599742013-04-03T14:51:00.001-07:002013-04-03T14:51:53.723-07:00Easter Day wanderings in the woods under broad blue skies...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It has been a thoughtful and sad two weeks, a bittersweet beginning to a cold bright spring and an ending too as we wait to say goodbye later this week to a good friend who lost his long battle with cancer on the spring equinox. I will say more words about our friend, an artist and a truly radiant man, in another post after we have said our goodbyes on friday, and show you some of the wonderful things he painted.<br />
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For now I will share with you some pictures of a bright Easter Day walk in the woods, bitter cold but with the earthy scent of green and growing things waking in the sun.<br />
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With Grandma and Grampy under the broad blue sky...</div>
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A very mischievous Easter Bunny here...! </div>
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Leading Grampy along winding fox trails...</div>
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Happy children in the sunshine... </div>
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I'll leave you with the hares seeking skyward over my hearth... Hope you all had a bright Easter and blue skies to bring in the spring. I'm looking forward to the greening of the woods...<br />
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<br />Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-7793250290833918322013-03-03T14:11:00.002-08:002013-03-03T14:11:39.629-08:00Life drawing at Bath Artist Studios...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">10 minute <span style="font-size: x-small;">sketch</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I thought it was about time I got back to some life drawing af<span style="font-size: small;">ter yet another long gap without doing any at all<span style="font-size: small;">! So yesterday I w<span style="font-size: small;">ent along to the six hour life day that happens every couple of months at <a href="http://www.bathartistsstudios.co.uk/classesworkshops.html" target="_blank">Bath Artist Studios</a>. I<span style="font-size: small;">t's been well over a year since I last went along to a l<span style="font-size: small;">ife day and I was seriously rusty! But it was great to get drawing again with a good model and to ch<span style="font-size: small;">at to other like-minded artists</span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">A life drawing day once every <span style="font-size: small;">blue moon isn't quite the same as a regular run of weekly sessions, but it is so hard to find both time and money to keep up a weekly course.</span> I think I will try and get to a life session somewhere <span style="font-size: small;">once a month if I can - I do love it, though it is always so challenging...</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The first sketch above was actually the very last quick one I did right at the end as an afterthought <span style="font-size: small;">in the last ten minutes, but actually its the drawing I liked best.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Here's some of the very rough and ready five minute warm up sketches that we started with, trying to get my eye and hand back in: </span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Xth2npQxw7_Aitj7VMjbzDAQxrMuYxi-dnhHDcHYTgqjpp8AawHwpRt9IOfaae0bbEzHuXDhZpX5GWRkZekqLRLs73ej50wUrbSXfPFaVyR5z_9fk632IWOlucdZ9jp6AVBv2EkhVig/s1600/5+minutes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Xth2npQxw7_Aitj7VMjbzDAQxrMuYxi-dnhHDcHYTgqjpp8AawHwpRt9IOfaae0bbEzHuXDhZpX5GWRkZekqLRLs73ej50wUrbSXfPFaVyR5z_9fk632IWOlucdZ9jp6AVBv2EkhVig/s320/5+minutes.jpg" width="195" /></a></div>
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And then one of the ten minute sketches (below), trying to make more of an effort to take time to measure properly which wasn't entirely successful!<br />
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Finally two different viewpoints of the last longer pose (in fact the first example at the top of this post was a third view of this same pose)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2rvjsj1WBfZxb03-L1WxW3e54BWdVcp7MdEZBI2KIie8x70fK1SdiIua3zDePWZJQXmZNzXBNXS1ZohGZhjrQE0ujxwIQLXqtiWEoqUkfnBlmOP_l6gZZIxMN8dPAEjYLvbAWNzHLrvY/s1600/45+mins+.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2rvjsj1WBfZxb03-L1WxW3e54BWdVcp7MdEZBI2KIie8x70fK1SdiIua3zDePWZJQXmZNzXBNXS1ZohGZhjrQE0ujxwIQLXqtiWEoqUkfnBlmOP_l6gZZIxMN8dPAEjYLvbAWNzHLrvY/s320/45+mins+.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">45 minute sketch</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">This 45 minute one was a lovely pose, but I <span style="font-size: small;">felt my handling of the charcoal was very murky and laboured so it isn't one I particularly like. <span style="font-size: small;">T</span>he <span style="font-size: small;">1</span> hour hour one below had some lovely lighting (with a very tricky bit of foreshortening on the right leg that rather stumped me!) </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgVaZGevPTPC4ZfbnraNBxygwy1rXOhRYHscWg9Rw13O0tGXX2Ifv1sTKcexzh9YstGPjSQXOhTDQ87g3p-mA9IDDtGszN1Yff5skgdemdft3eg9NiksZhK-0NonARrnTdAyWThJk7Yk/s1600/1+hour+.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgVaZGevPTPC4ZfbnraNBxygwy1rXOhRYHscWg9Rw13O0tGXX2Ifv1sTKcexzh9YstGPjSQXOhTDQ87g3p-mA9IDDtGszN1Yff5skgdemdft3eg9NiksZhK-0NonARrnTdAyWThJk7Yk/s400/1+hour+.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1 hour sketch</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">So there we are, not the most spectacular results but great to make a way back into drawing from life again. I am itching to do some <span style="font-size: small;">more now - I learn so much from this and I really have missed it.</span></span> </span></div>
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A friend to my surprise recently asked me, don't you get embarrassed by the nudity? The truth is it has never occurred to me that there would be anything to be embarrassed about. I have been life drawing on and off for the last 18 years and have never felt uncomfortable with any of the models I have drawn. In fact quite often you can chat to a model and completely forget that they haven't got any clothes on! </div>
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I just become immediately absorbed by the line and form, light and shade, and abstract composition of shape the body makes and try to capture that on the paper. </div>
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The human form I have always found a beautiful and fascinating subject to draw, the dynamic and energy of body language and expression in a pose, the energy and movement, tension or subtle poise all express so much. And then there's the fascination of muscle and sinew, the skeletal frame beneath, the way the light excentuates the hidden structures.</div>
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I wonder for any of you who love drawing the figure, what is it that you enjoy most about it?</div>
Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-42784023396012765902013-02-28T15:39:00.000-08:002013-02-28T16:02:50.219-08:00Another Small Stone - A Hedgerow Heart...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(You may need to click on this to read it larger!)</span></div>
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Here's the Small Stone that fluttered its way into my notebook this week - though it is maybe a little long for a small stone and a bit ragged around the edges. </div>
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Earlier this week one frosty cold morning, I rescued a tiny wren from the paws of my Mum & Dad's cat. She seemed unharmed and I could hardly feel her at all as she sat calmly and patiently in my hand. </div>
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I was enthralled by the brightness of her black glitter eyes, there seemed so much spirit contained within that fragile form, light as breath. Her beak was like a single curved blackthorn, a tiny embodiment of Hedgerow and breezes and wild greeness. She didn't cower or tremble in my hand, just waited, full of awareness, sparkling with it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bit blurry - sorry!</td></tr>
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We took her across the field and I opened my hand where she coiled poised for a heartbeat on my palm before fluttering into the hedgerow. She could fly and perch on the fence wire, so I hope she was strong enough after her tangle with the cat to get away safe and rest.<br />
I was intrigued by the spirit of her, the bright spark of her enfolded in feathers.<br />
I'm sure she has more songs to sing.Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-80499134899011313802013-02-25T14:42:00.000-08:002013-02-25T14:42:19.775-08:00'A Monster Calls' - the power of images and words...<br />
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Just a quick post to talk about this extraordinary novel 'A Monster Calls' By Patrick Ness. I just finished
reading this book two nights ago and its one of the most powerful things I have
read, harrowing, deeply moving and full of wrenching truths, it totally floored
me.</div>
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The last few chapters
reduced me to tears and left me shaking, yet it is told with such compassion and strength and depth
of understanding. The story of this is sadly very close to the bone for some
dear friends of mine right now... they are still fighting but I don't know for
how long.</div>
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Its an extraordinary, genius
book, and I have to thank Jackie Morris for bringing it to my awareness in her <a href="http://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/blog/the-weight-of-a-book/" target="_blank">review of it on her blog here.</a></div>
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The illustrations fill me with
uneasy awe, they are perfect and I love them. All the more powerful for being
black and white. Just looking at them makes my heart turn over with the wonderful wild presence of the monster and all the currents of emotion they carry.</div>
Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-37583794755347868072013-02-21T15:16:00.000-08:002013-02-21T15:23:50.638-08:00Small Stones.... fragments and thoughts, wingbeats in sun...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKaHAa2Bc5iT8aBgkRPvXNeTktCI3TCNaeveDDRciHr446ig6rkqJv6JHWkczeoHIYeBXcFKC57xQBsftXdvlk6pzwoFG_PUkWr__HCVEpO6cyhcGZK1T2GhOhbOXYggYLxryIjxsufV4/s1600/Muninn+detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKaHAa2Bc5iT8aBgkRPvXNeTktCI3TCNaeveDDRciHr446ig6rkqJv6JHWkczeoHIYeBXcFKC57xQBsftXdvlk6pzwoFG_PUkWr__HCVEpO6cyhcGZK1T2GhOhbOXYggYLxryIjxsufV4/s400/Muninn+detail.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #45818e;">Shining Crows</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #45818e;"> Glinting</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #45818e;">Like facets of anthracite</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #45818e;"> in the wind-bladed light,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #45818e;">Mobbing a Prince of the Air</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #45818e;"> with relentless irreverence.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: small;">Words <span style="font-size: small;">b</span>y Carrie - February 2013</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGMU9324cBghOVFBXBdD1RbF7hsIh8OekdxzBdxysuhE01-2JM5HKfDPMfN9UdhlQq3OGRYaA8D-GIe7rmnijS1cQXjD5EbbNAW1DZqavrXQfez7tEUVK0cVr8_LIDMyTz83f_IjinsuA/s1600/copyright+Carrie+Osborne+2012+Huginn+Muninn+.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGMU9324cBghOVFBXBdD1RbF7hsIh8OekdxzBdxysuhE01-2JM5HKfDPMfN9UdhlQq3OGRYaA8D-GIe7rmnijS1cQXjD5EbbNAW1DZqavrXQfez7tEUVK0cVr8_LIDMyTz83f_IjinsuA/s400/copyright+Carrie+Osborne+2012+Huginn+Muninn+.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I have been thinking for a while now as a bit of a prompt or a discipline of sorts, to properly stick to a regular 'Small Stone' post, maybe at least once a week, both to keep the writing part of my mind open and fluid, and to try to make more frequent visits to my poor neglected blog!</div>
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A <a href="http://www.ahandfulofstones.com/" target="_blank">'small stone' </a>as I'm sure many of you are familiar with, is like a moment of distilled perception, a fragment, the words or thoughts that fall into your mind when you truly look or feel and respond to the world in its unfolding, in a moment in time.</div>
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This is very much the way I have always written anyway, before I ever heard the term 'small stone' and it suits me well. I used to never be without a notebook and pencil or scrap of paper wherever I went. A thought or a fleeting observation would scrawl its way into my notebooks in fragments. Sometimes that small fragment would spark on into another one and then open a meandering trail that might lead into a story. Sometimes I would gather various fragments up like pieces of a puzzle and discover the thread to bind them together into something other with a life of its own.</div>
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My most recent two stories for children that I have written were each sparked from a single small stone, a phrase or two that sparked an entire wild journey of words and images - one maybe a little flintier than the other! </div>
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I love the unexpected leaps and turnings these moments of absorbed perception can take, and often love the fragments alone just for the shape and sound of their words.</div>
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This one arrived as I was watching a magnificent young Buzzard in the field beside our house, utterly confounded and grounded for all his broad brindled strength, by a pair of very bold derisive crows.</div>
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They would not let him be, every time he tried to take wing they would dive down and harry him relentlessly. He was outdone! He was forced to remain grounded for a good half hour or so in our field which gave me a rare good view of him... Eventually with expansive evasive manouvering he managed to flee to the woods hotly pursued by his jeering tormentors!</div>
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So, the first stone posted - I will endeavour to add another each week, and if I'm feeling really pro-active I might even start up a 'sketch-a-day' exercise and fill up those sketchbooks too!</div>
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Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-35031025541210962212013-01-31T14:49:00.001-08:002013-01-31T14:49:13.419-08:00Of Wolves and Words...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCmJx2cEw_1SyOX0Z1Kc2bk43vKJRtQK5uwaX1XkCZC6jL8p-dVIvbyrg1RhfMPLVdjCZQrpJ5KzQu8ESiU2AdC44tj6msbjevNNv1RPbMqrflSAcjA4ztrGFMkyLArOXWXqwzR6FpyVE/s1600/Alan+Garner+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCmJx2cEw_1SyOX0Z1Kc2bk43vKJRtQK5uwaX1XkCZC6jL8p-dVIvbyrg1RhfMPLVdjCZQrpJ5KzQu8ESiU2AdC44tj6msbjevNNv1RPbMqrflSAcjA4ztrGFMkyLArOXWXqwzR6FpyVE/s400/Alan+Garner+2.jpg" width="300" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2hPX5KaDKq0QaZNZSZcZs8Bwbw_aVbfn1IP36yey3ACiFlnh2BKLxCnBQZEDmpQLXN5iMv0Q8gesvU-sQ1dBGsIBgtfPVU4TRbE5hDagLLTki9_tSTEYyGcRO7nNS_NFCv9vM3bEP64Y/s1600/GM+detail+Copyright+Carrie+Osborne+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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I love language with all the flow and rhythm of the river of words that when gathered and shaped and spoken become something more, something alive and powerful.<br />
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I was recently at Toppings and Company Bookshop in Bath for my brother-in-law Jack Wolf's fabulous reading, talk and book signing to launch his brilliant debut novel <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Tale-of-Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones/432749723427267?ref=ts&fref=ts" target="_blank">'The Tale of Raw head and Bloody Bones' </a>which deserves a special post all of its own (which will be coming up very soon!)<br />
Its a real Aladdin's cave of beautiful, wonderful books and I came home with a small trove whilst looking back longingly at many others I would have loved to added to the pile... (to add to my ever growing collection <a href="http://wordhoards.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/my-beloved-books-of-old.html" target="_blank">here!</a>)<br />
One of those I came home with was Alan Garner's Collected Folk Tales in a beautifully decorated and gilded hard cover, a real treasure! The comment on the back cover by Philip Pullman says:<br />
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"The great collections of British folk tales such as this one, should be treated in two ways: first, they should be bound in gold and brought out on ceremonial occasions as national treasures; and second, they should be printed in hundreds of thousands, at the public expense, and given away free to every young teacher and every new parent."<br />
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But in the introduction Alan Garner says words that strike a resonating chord with me in all my love of language and stories. Of the folk tale he says:<br />
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"The real meaning is in the music; it is in the language: not phonetics, grammer or syntax, but pitch and cadence, and the colour of the word. <br />
In this selection I have tried to get back, through the written word, a sense of the spoken. I have worked to recreate the moment of the telling, so that the printed word may sing."<br />
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Yes! I thought, exactly that!<br />
Terri Windling on her blog <a href="http://windling.typepad.com/blog/" target="_blank">Myth and Moor</a> has been talking about <a href="http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/01/storytelling.html" target="_blank">Storytelling</a> in a far more eloquent way than I and is always inspiring and thought provoking - a well of creativity for all lovers of words, art and story! Do go and have a read...<br />
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There is something about writing that I love so much. I often hear it as a trail of thought from another place, bringing with it scents and sounds and dreamlike bright or shadowy images. Very often in the past as now, I have written and illustrated in tandem - sometimes the words manifesting first to lead the image, and sometimes the imagery first, sometimes so vividly that all the words have left to do is describe the scene.<br />
The story I am drawing a dummy book for at the moment arrived suddenly and very strong in its words, and I enjoyed the words so much for their own selves that even though it was always intended for a picture book, it stands alone, which I am pleased about.<br />
I wish I could share this tale with you all, but I would really like to give this its best pitch to a publisher and don't want to scupper its chances... so not yet I'm afraid...<br />
Instead I will show the you one of the double page spreads I have been drawing for the dummy book, sadly for now without the words which would sit on the empty right hand side of the drawing...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZX7oy94M49NSM_pAI5AqoUflYsaLiYXNB-24N2Jg_-PHFiF0f07P247MTfYHpDdl-Y7r63jmlqocwnL2q-YY8gLQvmNHsX4_BLKiDH5x4Coy_lyEfpX4fuJCmIRM6JAFHeBoRLAsAIpI/s1600/wolfcopyright+Carrie+Osborne+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZX7oy94M49NSM_pAI5AqoUflYsaLiYXNB-24N2Jg_-PHFiF0f07P247MTfYHpDdl-Y7r63jmlqocwnL2q-YY8gLQvmNHsX4_BLKiDH5x4Coy_lyEfpX4fuJCmIRM6JAFHeBoRLAsAIpI/s400/wolfcopyright+Carrie+Osborne+2013.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div>
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Here below is a detail of the top right corner...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2hPX5KaDKq0QaZNZSZcZs8Bwbw_aVbfn1IP36yey3ACiFlnh2BKLxCnBQZEDmpQLXN5iMv0Q8gesvU-sQ1dBGsIBgtfPVU4TRbE5hDagLLTki9_tSTEYyGcRO7nNS_NFCv9vM3bEP64Y/s1600/GM+detail+Copyright+Carrie+Osborne+2013.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2hPX5KaDKq0QaZNZSZcZs8Bwbw_aVbfn1IP36yey3ACiFlnh2BKLxCnBQZEDmpQLXN5iMv0Q8gesvU-sQ1dBGsIBgtfPVU4TRbE5hDagLLTki9_tSTEYyGcRO7nNS_NFCv9vM3bEP64Y/s400/GM+detail+Copyright+Carrie+Osborne+2013.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And a closeup of Wolf</div>
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Until I drew him I had no idea whether or not I could in fact draw a wolf... this was the first spread I tackled to make sure I could do it, so hopefully the images and words will knit together and sing! I really hope so!</div>
Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-45897196055350166702013-01-23T10:15:00.000-08:002013-01-23T10:15:23.915-08:00A world of spectral silences - Seasons of the soul...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A very belated Happy New Year to you all! I hope whatever weather the winter is wielding in your corner of the country, that you are all warm and well, and happy in heart!</div>
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I have not visited much here of late, posts I could have written and would have liked to have written have passed by and been left behind, their unspoken words swept away by a heavy trailing cloak of weariness.</div>
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It has been that bone deep kind of weariness that has something more to do with the spirit than the body, that paralyses creativity and numbs the mind. I have always been susceptible to it and rising above it takes a conscious effort. Much like the woods in a way - my soul turns in ever changing seasons and depths of weather!</div>
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But its high time to fling the heavy cloak aside and let the wind blow the weariness away...!</div>
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I may try to catch up with some of the lost news and pick up the threads in coming posts, but for now I will just start with today... Those of you folks who live up in North America or Canada probably have a chuckle at the fuss a little bit of snow creates here in Britain! But for all the chaos it causes, it is beautiful...</div>
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The snows draw down a strange silence and a cold bewitching beauty... our woods have become an ethereal world of spectral silences under crystal-rimed boughs, a breathtaking unearthliness.</div>
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It is like walking through the eerie, evocative paintings of Kay Nielsen and John Bauer, and I love the art of both...They were strongly in my mind as I walked...</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAFanWdthGovZd1i19-o8LaD8AIv2f6WqnK27oDbl50B8kYLyoGnPpiLdXWY6NpMsEdQo_uDV5zlWQ6c3Afwnn2_o4evSx594JYd9NQnoDPlbYfiQyrjXAW59oTzt16Ujy2GRiXct09MY/s1600/kn_inthewood.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAFanWdthGovZd1i19-o8LaD8AIv2f6WqnK27oDbl50B8kYLyoGnPpiLdXWY6NpMsEdQo_uDV5zlWQ6c3Afwnn2_o4evSx594JYd9NQnoDPlbYfiQyrjXAW59oTzt16Ujy2GRiXct09MY/s640/kn_inthewood.jpg" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By Kay Nielsen</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuJZbsZk7vaavYqemIWWeVBgTHrsDdzZHOqPSvDV7IBUurqRNltT7AJiasonrExTBEJTKbuRWZeMrT0X0R1mwBvr_gQJjztfPgrPKJLUKM3rJuYw4S9gdDhoIyglHC6lFZPcZxZL4jf7Q/s400/john+bauer2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="397" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By John Bauer</td></tr>
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But there is a part of me that longs for the spring, and I so look forward to watching the slow changes of the woods as ferns unfurl and the earth wakes. I can't wait for the fresh green of young birch leaves layered in light and the bright unravelling curls of baby oak leaves. I love living at the edges of the woods. They are seeming to become a metaphor for life in so many layers for me. Thoughts that deepen and unfold every time I walk there in every changing season..<br />
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And even beneath the cloaking snow, a rebellious burst of bright yellow gorse petals defies this season...<br />
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The woods were even whiter still when we walked there this morning, the snows marked by many small crisscrossing trails of tiny feet - rabbit tracks stalked by fox, bird tracks fine-etched and faint, and the deeper tracks of foraging deer.<br />
Two deer sprang away ahead of us through the trees, soon to disapear like mist as we followed, and again much closer to home another bounded across our path and away. I hope they're finding enough to eat.<br />
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I will be back soon with the beginnings of some artwork to show you from my newest story and will try not to neglect my poor little blog for so long this time! I'll leave you with this clip of Yuri Norstein's 'Seasons' - I know I've posted it before but it is so perfect for this post and entrancing however many times you see it!<br />
Bye for now...<br />
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<br />Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-67832026403471656422012-11-19T14:39:00.001-08:002012-11-19T14:46:44.231-08:00Wanders 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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The birch trees are so beautiful in every season, layered in light, delicately trembling...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Birch in late October</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Birch in November floating in layers of gold lace</td></tr>
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'I whispered to the birch...<br />
My breath crept up into a world of shudderings.<br />
Was she veiled?<br />
Herself her own fountain<br />
She pretended to be absent from it, or to be becoming air<br />
Filtering herself from her fingertips,<br />
Till her bole paled, like a reflection on water,<br />
And I felt the touch of my own ghostliness...'<br />
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- From 'Trees' by Ted Hughes<br />
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The Oaks too I love.<br />
Our woods are full of tall ancient oak trees - mossy-coat giants breathing to their own deep slow rhythm.<br />
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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...<br />
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Just had to show you these huge skies.....<br />
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Elswyth (above) loves the woods and often wanders her own way singing beneath the spreading boughs...<br />
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While Elora finds adventures around every trunk...!<br />
<br />Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-84215698618510538852012-11-06T14:03:00.000-08:002012-11-06T14:03:30.497-08:00Our '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 <a href="http://wordhoards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/catching-sparks-from-wild-wind.html" target="_blank">'Three Generations' exhibition</a> 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!<br />
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!<br />
Lots of pretty cakes and nice drinks and live music...<br />
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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...<br />
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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...<br />
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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!<br />
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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:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfKbDoPdbd89tk3HahpzPN2sD1GMm1MQdB0oasFpUR9Ip955uwBivGq3Zef4iAjt-Mxb0Egf5DXqg_Vloju9-LttSqqetYiMdM_jNG9A007HNmYDXl7ybFq7Sp_hWXSSPnSaGNfC2dRi0/s1600/IMG_0241.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfKbDoPdbd89tk3HahpzPN2sD1GMm1MQdB0oasFpUR9Ip955uwBivGq3Zef4iAjt-Mxb0Egf5DXqg_Vloju9-LttSqqetYiMdM_jNG9A007HNmYDXl7ybFq7Sp_hWXSSPnSaGNfC2dRi0/s320/IMG_0241.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Work by Elora and Elswyth aged 5 & 8</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMHfaP6ShLNI41eRITmq4ZBtjO95Lc474EZHkW6ISL5bW6_4YzyIskqIvnhuTB9cbYxbFlj7ZME-bngzQSnYFj0nGPCjq6N986HX0KEfe2t61nHtPPEbPD9zIr4fZDfXS_gD09m5i1soo/s1600/IMG_0288.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMHfaP6ShLNI41eRITmq4ZBtjO95Lc474EZHkW6ISL5bW6_4YzyIskqIvnhuTB9cbYxbFlj7ZME-bngzQSnYFj0nGPCjq6N986HX0KEfe2t61nHtPPEbPD9zIr4fZDfXS_gD09m5i1soo/s320/IMG_0288.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> By Elora age 8 </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0du3AxFSYPOvuZ6um5va8Oe_hEiA5S1ypmXBZf6KeeMoOAvroMGNnEWNOAInpMIWij2grcxXJhbY8Kjrd8qIhsATxS-ne43d1mdQG06nV5j_b95qfrfok9Qoy6AkOpgp9_vXA4lns7K8/s1600/IMG_0261.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0du3AxFSYPOvuZ6um5va8Oe_hEiA5S1ypmXBZf6KeeMoOAvroMGNnEWNOAInpMIWij2grcxXJhbY8Kjrd8qIhsATxS-ne43d1mdQG06nV5j_b95qfrfok9Qoy6AkOpgp9_vXA4lns7K8/s320/IMG_0261.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still life paintings by Heather O' Brien</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdH8SRjkc7PQ7sqgDj4xzZLmk8STgSwHxEiP0fmeqGYbQkuskNSPcik3DjvwsQGw12AVpgcMdcecOkk0C-Malm77BlOrdJB8AHVUH0hUAA9TiqYIwSldnvvqvBdK1GEFx5RfamnkfBoqg/s1600/IMG_0254.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdH8SRjkc7PQ7sqgDj4xzZLmk8STgSwHxEiP0fmeqGYbQkuskNSPcik3DjvwsQGw12AVpgcMdcecOkk0C-Malm77BlOrdJB8AHVUH0hUAA9TiqYIwSldnvvqvBdK1GEFx5RfamnkfBoqg/s320/IMG_0254.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More work from my Mum Heather</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkko4MuI5nKyKCwjOiQLXRQAQukVC6fEnUOLiiM_UnDaxfYE8pTc_3a-sO4RkalGWigyJpWT3yiKIMG_sQVrVmmgQ6etVRnpVukAUko2AL0gkKBmQvqAM3wqqg6UvnayLW0NYBROk_3lQ/s1600/IMG_0263.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkko4MuI5nKyKCwjOiQLXRQAQukVC6fEnUOLiiM_UnDaxfYE8pTc_3a-sO4RkalGWigyJpWT3yiKIMG_sQVrVmmgQ6etVRnpVukAUko2AL0gkKBmQvqAM3wqqg6UvnayLW0NYBROk_3lQ/s320/IMG_0263.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I thought I'd show some roughs from my Dummy Book I am hoping to find a publisher for</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj32IPz5HevJdzx999cs4fwRfJQkTgPsm8m-swjOPtFHioxmqmmc-pm6cRdxmm-Yq-nCX-MDaiIwMk0cdDTpjTpofCh2JtbNeoGcBbKagm2UNLtKDj8fQpskTWgfEUtZ6vkRjrKFcQP6Lw/s1600/IMG_0271.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj32IPz5HevJdzx999cs4fwRfJQkTgPsm8m-swjOPtFHioxmqmmc-pm6cRdxmm-Yq-nCX-MDaiIwMk0cdDTpjTpofCh2JtbNeoGcBbKagm2UNLtKDj8fQpskTWgfEUtZ6vkRjrKFcQP6Lw/s320/IMG_0271.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some more of my illustration</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1nZ-UHJR6FiQdne4lTNcukuUpASeDQTz-CK0uvkM8C4sbBoSJmiRtao1wdOS53SQU7BWssZ6M5W4a9esqNJ2jBNo2s0T5aEmlCYY7zPboWheDf3SfEH3XuzPT4lKL2bUt75tED41rGIM/s1600/IMG_0274.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1nZ-UHJR6FiQdne4lTNcukuUpASeDQTz-CK0uvkM8C4sbBoSJmiRtao1wdOS53SQU7BWssZ6M5W4a9esqNJ2jBNo2s0T5aEmlCYY7zPboWheDf3SfEH3XuzPT4lKL2bUt75tED41rGIM/s320/IMG_0274.JPG" width="237" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By Elswyth age 5</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAZKqBAtn9-ix44LJ-g1L7IrilQBj6kP7SukdeTstF-8UK1VL8T4IrI8d7XuiXKc_L5xkAkyuF2HMZhqSZVNSDS-sohefGHHj8a-Z_LyPGY1VA7kyZUIyHQDgONF3FrqBIR6wQFZyOJQ/s1600/IMG_0280.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAZKqBAtn9-ix44LJ-g1L7IrilQBj6kP7SukdeTstF-8UK1VL8T4IrI8d7XuiXKc_L5xkAkyuF2HMZhqSZVNSDS-sohefGHHj8a-Z_LyPGY1VA7kyZUIyHQDgONF3FrqBIR6wQFZyOJQ/s320/IMG_0280.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some life drawings of mine...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUS7ukNvdEZJO_R5dw-Tv2bkbXFhsafHFz4Fqv4FjR-FCKS0ZmZsltVd77sLjUvccN-Eg60GyWvt7LaRaAScAxTQAM1E6TMgbwVj7r10k005VM8c4-tpn3Hf1KvOxzpZCSRQgxM7O9NNc/s1600/IMG_0285.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUS7ukNvdEZJO_R5dw-Tv2bkbXFhsafHFz4Fqv4FjR-FCKS0ZmZsltVd77sLjUvccN-Eg60GyWvt7LaRaAScAxTQAM1E6TMgbwVj7r10k005VM8c4-tpn3Hf1KvOxzpZCSRQgxM7O9NNc/s320/IMG_0285.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By Elswyth age 5</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grandma has a well deserved cup of tea when all the guests have gone!</td></tr>
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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...<br />
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.<br />
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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!"<br />
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...."<br />
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."<br />
Lovely!<br />
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<br />Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-7912295230906347382012-11-04T13:39:00.000-08:002012-11-04T13:39:13.664-08:00'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...! <br />
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Halloween night was particularly exciting this year because it saw t<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">he
</span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">premier of</span></span></span> the book trailer for my brother-in-law Jack Wolf's debut novel <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Tale-of-Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones/432749723427267" target="_blank">'The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones'</a> at The Prince Charles Cinema in London as part
of Waterstone's event with Audrey Niffenegger and Erin Morgenstern!</span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">We couldn't make it to London for this event but I am so looking forward to the official Book Launch in December...</span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[7].[1][2][1]{comment444918068877099_4824928}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">Here is the brilliant trailer: </span></span></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4k-hNGe1isA" width="560"></iframe><br />
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And you can hear <a href="http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/authors/vintage-podcasts/HalloweenSpecialPodcast/" target="_blank">Jack reading an excerpt from the novel here</a> 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 <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Tale-Head-Bloody-Bones/dp/0701186879/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1349686090&sr=8-1" target="_blank">pre-order it here!</a><br />
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!<br />
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I will return soon with some tales of autumn, but this morning we awoke to an unexpected early breath of winter...<br />
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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.<br />
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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...<br />
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And what better to come in from the snow and the wet and settle into a cosy sunday afternoon around the fire...<br />
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Back soon....<br />
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<br />Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-65802809942033309222012-09-01T16:25:00.000-07:002012-09-01T16:25:14.668-07:00A 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.<br />
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.<br />
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It was a soft Welsh summer evening, with torches lining the wooded path to the Roundhouses on the hilltop...<br />
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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...<br />
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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...<br />
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!<br />
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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...!<br />
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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...<br />
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Sorry about the murky photos...!<br />
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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...<br />
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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...Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-75183600609858894272012-08-15T15:36:00.001-07:002012-08-15T15:36:30.116-07:00Catching the sparks from the wild wind...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Time has once again seized me in its inexorable current and its true that its less frustrating to go with its flow rather than fight the tide...! Despite that feeling that life streams through our fingers like skeins of mists unravelled in the wind, I do love that wind!<br />
Tonight outside the window you would think it was the gales of autumn blasting the sky not a wild summer storm riding past all trumpets blowing! But anyway, time tossed or wind tossed, I have somehow managed to keep a few creative sparks kindling!<br />
Above is another page of what I have decided will be a sketchbook purely for pen and ink... I enjoyed this drawing, exploring the textures and experimenting with the beautiful glass pen my parents got me for my birthday a while back. Owls are always good fun to draw!<br />
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Words too have been wending their way onto the page... right in the middle of another story I was supposed to be working on, an entirely different story barged its way past and took hold of my pen! Its a bit wild and capricious and probably the most quickly completed tale I have written, yet it was all there waiting and full of life... I think I rather like it!<br />
Now to start thumbnailing the images and begin work on turning it into a dummy picture book... <br />
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The only thing is I will have to learn to draw wolves... canines of any kind I am not confident drawing, but I felt that way about dragons too, hopefully it will come if I keep sketching... here's a first attempt...<br />
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I've also been putting together some flyers to print for an exhibition.... I've not exhibited my work before - there's not that much of it that's good enough! But I will not be alone... it is to be a bit of a family collaboration, an exhibition of three generations - and that is what I've called it!<br />
I've always been a bit too embarrassed to put my own work up in my own gallery, too much like blowing my own trumpet perhaps, but then I thought - I put so much work into putting on shows for other people, why not? It could be fun!<br />
So it will be my Mum with her wonderful big oils on canvas of gardens and landscapes, myself with some children's illustration, life drawings and ravens, and my two bright little daughters just beginning their journey full of enthusiasm and children's innate creativity.<br />
I think it will be a lovely way to appreciate the thread that runs through us as close family and as artists and to show each of us on our various stages of our creative paths.<br />
Here's a quote from my press release:<br />
<span class="normal-c-c0"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“Growing
up with an Artist for a mother meant that drawing was almost like breathing for
me, I could not imagine life without a sketchbook! It will be lovely to share
an exhibition with my mother and also with my children, almost like passing the
paintbrush on down the line...”</span></span><br />
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And here's a sneak preview of the double sided flyer..<span class="normal-c-c0"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(back)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(front)</td></tr>
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Its a little way off just yet though... I will show you some pictures when the time comes and let you know how it went!<br />
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Finally I must MUST show you these wonderful animations I found the other night on youtube... I've always loved 'real' animation as opposed to CGI which is very clever yet leaves me a bit cold... The Russian animators to me always seemed to have something quite special, and these by Yuri Norstein have such beautiful depth of emotion, spirit and sense of wonderment, I really love them...<br />
(sorry couldn't find one without the advert) <br />
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and here's another by the same chap, hope you enjoy them:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jnvuw29Tc28" width="420"></iframe><br />Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-62720959806655965912012-07-31T17:43:00.000-07:002012-07-31T17:43:51.984-07:00A creative circle, a creative life.... of music, ink and oaks...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was inspired today to finally break open a new sketchbook and take up pen and ink by my lovely husband Tony... I'm always frustrated by how little time and energy remain to me for anything creative after the needs of work and children have have run their course for the day... but it is very easy to say 'I'm too tired, I'm not feeling focussed, I'm stressed, maybe tomorrow...' and then let the frustration mount.<br />
I have felt more and more out of touch with my creative self as I let these things dis-empower me until I feel seized up and disconnected. I seem to live frustration. But this is the way my life is set out right now and there is no use waiting for time that will not come...<br />
Tony showed me today that living a creative life need not be pushed aside by what we are obliged to do and bound by from day to day, that it is up to me to stop bemoaning my lack of time and energy and to make the most of the moments and hours I do have in the fullest way...<br />
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I sent him home from work today - he's not been well and our air compressor bust a valve at the workshop so we could not underpin any frames anyway until its fixed. By the time I got home I found that even dosed up on antibiotics and feeling rotten, he had written another really brilliant new song on his 12 string, and I thought... if he can compose music and lyrics whilst feeling like that, then what really is stopping me from getting on with some drawing and writing? Answer of course, only myself.<br />
Unfortunately by the time we returned home again from collecting the children he had forgotten<br />
precisely how the rhythm went, but hopefully it will come back, it was a good one! <br />
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This is a pen and ink sketch of my favourite Oak tree in the woods behind our house, and I really enjoyed drawing it, to have only ink and twisting patterns of bark flowing through my thoughts and watch it grow from the blank white page...<br />
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I went walking in our woods a few days ago in the dappled sunlight with a cool breeze that smoothed the lines from my brow as I walked and soothed my cares away.<br />
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The meadowsweet smelled as sweet as its name...<br />
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And a special treasure waited for me to find it in the field on my return. I'd been watching a big pale buzzard quartering the field this week now the hay has been finally cut, and she left me this fine feather. Beautiful isn't it - a gift from a Sky-dweller...<br />
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Hopefully I have broken the creative deadlock and I will make efforts to do something creative everyday, whether words or images, or even just ways of thinking.... to remind me, here is a poem I have on the first page of one of my sketchbooks that I like (I think I may have posted this before somewhere maybe?):<br />
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<br /></div>
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Remember</div>
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That just to have the eyes of an artist,</div>
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that can be enough.</div>
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The ear of a poet,</div>
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that can be enough.</div>
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The soul of a human</div>
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just pointed in the direction of the divine,</div>
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that can be more than enough.</div>
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I tell you this to remind myself,</div>
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Every gesture is an act of creation</div>
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Even empty spaces and silences</div>
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can be the wings and voices of Angels.</div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #45818e;">- By Michele Linfante</span>Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-54295582999092549212012-06-26T14:19:00.002-07:002012-06-26T14:19:32.571-07:00Starting work on a new studio at last.... and some medieval mayhem!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, I had some time off work today, my planned walk in the woods was rained off so I thought I would make a start finally on my studio to be!<br />
I'm finding it very hard to get on with any artwork in our tiny house and the thought of having a brilliant space of my own is really exciting. If only we had a ten day week to get it done! So, I armed myself with the pick hammer thingy and began to knock and scrape away all the ancient loose crumbly lime plaster from the outer walls...<br />
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I ended up with dust and chips of mortar in my hair, eyes, in my clothes, and blisters on my hands too but after a couple of hours it started to look like this...<br />
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I got half way up that wall so far but I'll need a ladder for the rest another day, then some serious re-pointing and plaster board for the internal walls. But little by little I SHALL have a studio!<br />
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And now for something completely different... It was the town's Medieval Fayre day again last weekend so as we did last year I dressed our shop window for the occasion, this is one I really enjoy putting together...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tony ready to fend off awkward customers!</td></tr>
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And this year we thought we would dress the part too...Tony wore that chain mail coif all day, even in the workshop and had neck ache for the next two days! Its really heavy... It seemed to go down well with the customers though. I suppose they might have had picture framers in the middle ages???</div>
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Needless to say there were a lot of lines quoted from Monty Python's Holy Grail! Tony's off now to go and fight the Vicious Chicken of Bristol! </div>
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More studio updates, hopefully coming soon!</div>
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Sorry I just couldn't resist this clip......</div>
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</div>Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-82323079057678244162012-06-21T14:00:00.000-07:002012-06-21T14:06:19.956-07:00The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I'm very excited to announce that my brother in law's first novel is now <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tale-Raw-Head-Bloody-Bones/dp/0701186887/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340308225&sr=1-1" target="_blank">available for pre-order, here!</a> So of course I am shamelessly plugging it! Jack showed us the bound proof copy today which looks amazing.... quite a hefty volume too with Jack's name on every page header!<br />
Here's how the publishers described Jack's book...<br />
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<div style="color: #45818e;">
"An explosive, transgressive, ambitious, wildly imaginative debut from a major new writer" </div>
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How's that for an introduction! It's been so exciting watching Jack going through the process from being picked out by a major agent during his MA to finally seeing this work in print!<br />
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Here's the Synopsis from Amazon's site:<br />
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The year is 1750.<br />
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Meet Tristan Hart,
precociously talented student of medicine practising under the legendary
Dr William Hunter. His obsession is the nature of pain and preventing
it; the relationship between mind and matter and the existence of God. A
product of the Age of Enlightenment, he is a rational man on a quest to
cut through darkness and superstition with the brilliant blade of
science.<br />
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Meet Tristan Hart, madman and deviant. His
obsession is the nature of pain, and causing it. A product of an age of
faeries and goblins, gnomes and shape-shifting gypsies, he is on a quest
to arouse the perfect scream and slay the daemon Raw Head who torments
his dark days and long nights. </div>
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Troubled visionary,
twisted genius, loving sadist. What is real and what imagined in Tristan
Hart's brutal, beautiful, complex world?</div>
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I believe it will be released in January, can't wait to get my copy!<br />
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I am not in Jack's league, but I took my wordhoard gathering out into the woods the other day, notebook in pocket, eyes, ears and heart open to gather the skeins of thought blown on the wind.<br />
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I took my camera too and must show you this Rhododendron hidden in a
dark and shady hollow that seems more flesh than wood. Its the most
human looking tree I have seen...<br />
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The boughs look muscular, arched back, arms up raised, breast, armpit, navel....<br />
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It made me think of all the myths and tales of people who have taken root and transformed into trees, either driven by grief or trapped by a curse or pitied by the Gods...<br />
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Amazing nature, strange indeed...!<br />
I ended up gathering some good stanzas that I thought to share here, but afterall I might hang onto them a while yet to weave into my story that is gaining its own flesh but needs yet to re-order its bones. I feel its becoming poised like an indrawn breath, leaves all a tremble waiting for the lightning to strike. Other things keep emerging too, wanting to become a part of the story, almost like it has a life of its own beginning to awaken. I think there will be much of the woods in this story...<br />
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I seemed to have chosen the wettest, muddiest path home through the woods with my wellies that have split all the way round and are no longer water tight! But was truly rewarded by following briefly a jay, flitting bright-winged from tree to tree ahead of me, a jewelled flash of colour in a dancing game.<br />
But best of all, in the low green valley between the enclosing arms of the woods, I saw two beautiful Buzzards sky dancing overhead.<br />
They circled one another on languid wings before clasping each other's talons and spiralling gracefully together, down, down, down, faster and faster, with the sun flashing on their wings.... then at the last possible moment they separated and skimmed apart, wing tips brushing the very tops of the wheat. They circled away and rose back into the sky to soar one after the other above my head.<br />
That I stored in a quiet place next to my heart.<br />
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And before the drenching rains returned, we managed a last picnic tea in the woods after school yesterday beneath a gathering of oaks overlooking that same valley. Much better than cooking if you ask me!</div>
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</div>Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-16649510098035645642012-06-17T16:30:00.000-07:002012-06-18T15:10:17.369-07:00Woodland treasure - Sky-heart cradle, a Dragon or two and a Fuzzypeg family...<br />
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Well it seems once more despite all hopes that weeks are fleeing by without me picking up a pencil or a brush, so I have no artwork to post here yet for now... but I know that all the imagery and scents and sounds of recent weeks are storing up in a quiet corner of my mind, waiting to flow outwards again... I'm still not sure why or what I am waiting for, but I know that if I sit worrying over a blank page chewing a pencil it will do no good. Time WILL come to just sit quietly and let the words and images that wait, quicken and unravel...<br />
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But here and now is the small infinately delicate treasure I found today on our walk through the woods, light as breath, frail perfect sanctum that nourished a flickering wonder of coiled life-spark. That from something so fragile comes the brief bright-wing spirit to sing under rain laden leaves and brush the sky with its small heart... how can that not inspire!<br />
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The foxgloves also are all reaching tall in my parents garden despite the stormy winds and rain we've had... I love their speckled-ness. I even managed to catch a bee or two in my photos...<br />
I have a vivid childhood memory, perhaps aged about six, of watching a bee go into a foxglove flower, and for some unfathomable impulse of curiosity I had pinched the petals gently shut. The bee inside of course was furious, bizz-buzzing away angrily inside... and I was so horrified I was too scared to let go! I think mum came to the rescue luckily for me and the bee...!<br />
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Harebells too, the colour of summer skies...<br />
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Later we went to our local Castle a couple of miles down the lane in Nunney, with the particular purpose of photographing our daughters for a competition at school - a bit of fun, for a picture of people reading in unusual places... so Elora being in love with Dragonkind at the moment posed like this...<br />
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Here's a bit more of the castle, its a nice place to have on the doorstep...</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These ruined turrets rising through the trees remind me of Gormenghast a little... </td></tr>
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And here's Elswyth's photos reading Robin Hood of course!<br />
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I will leave you for now with some gorgeous little prickly babies... <br />
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Our neighbour is a volunteer at a nearby animal hospitol and is currently nursing this lovely family of Fuzzypegs back to health until they are strong enough to be released into the wild. A well meaning but sadly ignorant family were keeping them in a rabbit run and feeding them milk and bread so they were really malnourished and sickly, one of them even had a plastic ring from a beer can around its middle. Thankfully they have all survived and have grown a lot in the last week now they are eating meatier food.<br />
The children have been lucky enough to see them up close a couple of times now. Beautiful creatures indeed!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Huge gloves for little hands but necessary!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful heart shaped faces</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This one almost reminds me of a little old woman swathed in cloak and shawl...</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Hope you enjoyed these little prickle-pins... I will let you know how they get on when they are ready to be released! Bye bye for now...Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-59004788011859452982012-05-26T16:13:00.002-07:002012-05-26T16:13:20.050-07:00Walking to meet the King of the Wood...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Would you like to join me for a walk? It might be a long one mind!<br />
With the lovely fair weather we've been having lately we have had lots of soft summer evening walks before the children's bedtime... off through the woods and fields behind our house. The children have been in their element chasing sun-shadows beneath the leaves! Its done us all good.<br />
This particular walk happened on a rare afternoon off while the children were at school. We took a picnic and a flask of tea and headed off over the garden wall...<br />
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Our new home seems to be all about Oaks... we have a younger Oak at the bottom of the garden, while the field we look out onto has entire clans of grand old Oaks striding across it. I love them! In this picture below you can just see our little house between the trunks...<br />
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I love their twisting expressive gestures and the writhing textures of the bark...<br />
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Across the fields and through the shimmering sea of wheat crop, eddies of sun shining on the swell of the breeze making the field sway in a constant motion like the land's very breathing...<br />
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And down into the leafy shade of our 'Badger Lane' - not its true name but one we like to call it by for the large neighbourhood of badger sets in its banks... I love the unfurling of fern fronds glowing like green candles in the sun...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A squirral's dinner table</td></tr>
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Come now into the woods... we walk all along its green feathered edges...<br />
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... and spy a tower through the trees...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We watched crows flying in and out of the small holes going up the tower's stem and could hear the rasping croaks of the young birds cawing for their parent's meal.</td></tr>
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This tower, a Victorian folly put up by the Lord Hilton of the time, reminds me of a tale and an illustration in a book of Grimm's fairy tales I had as a child, where to thwart some prophecy of disaster a King bricked up his daughter with only her Lady in Waiting for human company inside such a tower. Of course in the way of such tales when finally a passing hero broke open the tower, generations had passed and although she hadn't aged, the Kingdom of her father had crumbled and fallen to dust, his attempts at avoiding fate failed. I can't remember all of it or what it was called, but the picture of her emerging in bewilderment from the broken prison of her tower, dismayed at all that had passed to dust, stays with me still.<br />
We just learned this week from a customer that a wealthy builder's merchant who once lived in the next row of terraces to ours, had at the time this tower was built by Lord Hilton, built one of his own that no longer stands today, just to outdo the Lord he made his tower taller and had a tea room underneath!<br />
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Here's where we stopped for our picnic beneath a magnificent mighty Beech just beyond the Tower... would you like a cup of tea?<br />
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The view across the valley from here is so peaceful, I'd like to come here alone to write sometime...<br />
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Then home again through the birch wood, a gleaming net of sunlit leaves for a roof where a hushling leafsong whispers and sighs...<br />
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On the way there is a true King of the wood, I was staggered when I first saw him, such ancient strength, such power of root and limb. This one below seems to me to have arms raised in some incantation or wild gestulation...<br />
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And open armed, a powerful Monarch addressing his woodland subjects of Ash and Birch...<br />
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At the top of this track (pic below) on the wood's edge we paused to look back down over the valley and watched a Kestral hunting below us. She took her kill to a treetop, when to our amazement a massive splay winged bird sliced into her skyspace to try to steal her kill... the sun flashed along a deep red back and there was no doubt that this was the enormous Red Kite that flew over our house when we first moved in!<br />
But not to be outwitted, our tiny Kestral furiously mobbed the Red Kite with such tenacity that she actually saw him off back to the woods... just goes to show...!<br />
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I hope you enjoyed coming along on our walk... thanks for joining in - it was too nice not to share, and we have a whole summer more of walks to look forward to and lots more picnics too!<br />
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<br />Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-17140033004406939102012-05-24T15:50:00.001-07:002012-05-24T15:50:21.623-07:00The Greening of Oaks and Circles of Birds...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Circles of Oaks and Feathers - For Alexis</td></tr>
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It seems like a really long time since I posted here, and there have been so many things that would have been nice to post if I'd had a little more time. Some things I probebly still will if it means walking back in time a bit, I have some Tales of Wales from our week away in early May, and perhaps some Dragon Tails too!<br />
But for now, I will show you this little painting I did this week as a present for a dear friend on her birthday...<br />
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I really enjoy this kind of work and get lost in the making of patterns and the simplicity of it. When I'm working on a big, serious illustration I can get quite stressed and anxious about the painting of it and often have to keep dragging myself back to the drawing board. But with this Kells style work it is sheer enjoyment and I often find I am smiling away to myself as I paint. A nice way to make a present for a friend!<br />
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Hopefully in the next day or so if I can wrest the time, I will post the May sunshine walk that inspired this painting and filled me up with the vibrancy of green growing things, and the awe inspiring freedom of the sky dwellers... It has been just what my soul needed!<br />
So, for now I will leave you with a song I have loved for a long time - usually in a high energy electric rock, but I have just disovered this great acoustic version which holds the spirit of the song even better...<br />
Bye for now...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YswUzhRI3qg" width="420"></iframe>Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-14438202028944992062012-04-27T15:06:00.000-07:002012-04-27T15:06:10.663-07:00Windsongs... and a Wordhoard to unlock...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I took all my finished double page spreads, sketchbook of thumbnails and the finished dummy book itself over to my illustration tutor <a href="http://www.jannesbittartwork.com/index.html" target="_blank">Jan Nesbitt</a> today! I will wait for her professional critique before I go ahead and reproduce proofs of it all to put to editors...<br />
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(Sorry about the dingy photos!)</div>
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The next stage will be the most daunting, making sure I get my approaches to editors dead right and then just hoping its all up to standard enough to try and make a good impression! </div>
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Meanwhile I'm starting to try and capture in words the bee-humming, fire-dancing song that's been whispering an elusive trail through the story-threaded part of my mind... I just need to wait quietly for a time and listen...</div>Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-38801658983262982862012-04-10T15:16:00.005-07:002012-04-10T16:03:10.200-07:00A Dragon, a Singer and a Fish... or remembering how to paint!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHxYmiBrKwLBbh34ixu0zr8wtlyNAxf_pMHzuXpOe6KmEnPT8pC0IszPUzfvTm04YoTeF9A1OrcFTU6EhkgFmsIagRh3Jwsq8W6JbGyxj30StDputtsFpFguRjd8bMobholPbLhf0fcxM/s1600/workspace+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHxYmiBrKwLBbh34ixu0zr8wtlyNAxf_pMHzuXpOe6KmEnPT8pC0IszPUzfvTm04YoTeF9A1OrcFTU6EhkgFmsIagRh3Jwsq8W6JbGyxj30StDputtsFpFguRjd8bMobholPbLhf0fcxM/s400/workspace+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729899853793344338" border="0" /></a>A friend of ours offered to have the children for a bit today so I made an attempt to get on with finishing my three spreads for my dummy book which has been taking far, far too long... wish I could fix that darn time stasis machine!<br />I don't currently have my own work space in the new house, so I took possesion of our tiny dining room for the day and just, only just, squeezed my drawing boards onto the teeny weeny table!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh29_8JFI1_9WxkqfaOF1G9zWCPan5mo5oykCMKjhmfX_Pt-2zNK14f61pqNWywA29NE0tFaJ73sz83N1oI2GHr7KPl5MMbskJaOdnBYga9tTvfu_JxQnAS5z2GvGvNdl6lgG2-isN7zeo/s1600/workspace2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh29_8JFI1_9WxkqfaOF1G9zWCPan5mo5oykCMKjhmfX_Pt-2zNK14f61pqNWywA29NE0tFaJ73sz83N1oI2GHr7KPl5MMbskJaOdnBYga9tTvfu_JxQnAS5z2GvGvNdl6lgG2-isN7zeo/s400/workspace2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729899847208311842" border="0" /></a>A great impetous for getting on with chiselling off the old crumbly mortar from the walls of what will become my eventual studio!<br />I found myself terrified of putting brush to these paintings again after such a long time away from them. I don't usually leave a painting until its finished and never come back to finished pieces to meddle, but events just got in the way of progress on these.<br />I moved them on and the dragon spread on the easel is now finished, but am having somewhat of a crisis of confidence in the quality of any of them.<br />I think really this has more to do with the fact that these paintings will have to try to sell my story to a potential publisher, and this being my first shot at it I'm finding it hugely intimidating. Still its a learning curve and you don't know if you don't try it. I'll just brace for those rejection letters and dig around for some self-belief!<br />Here's a bit of work-in-progress on one of the spreads anyway...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3_2IsIKC4vvDBkqEix1tfLUFfKJdEVMnss-uWlRSsViFiUBO3rCMAGZ7mU8OIfmsRbTWQnMinlqEutTJNoThyre9xjDG3vpazb1MLW5SJ7B7MTSw2QfoTTmA_7UJlYirk2tkt4a_y9w/s1600/detail1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3_2IsIKC4vvDBkqEix1tfLUFfKJdEVMnss-uWlRSsViFiUBO3rCMAGZ7mU8OIfmsRbTWQnMinlqEutTJNoThyre9xjDG3vpazb1MLW5SJ7B7MTSw2QfoTTmA_7UJlYirk2tkt4a_y9w/s400/detail1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729899868900036866" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FkA0EtXOQJlR3ydlwpE5In6FKlFyWcA80RlvqZ-JVSDvrmfIm7Rzr3vf__cHdm67kUrMy9y2Ltd5HsI0Rjl6XOGaCDURcH3pjHnQHwL8MkC05nnasgVfvRC49KHVqgV3QVnLpXvICPU/s1600/copyright+c.osborne+WIP+Windsinger.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FkA0EtXOQJlR3ydlwpE5In6FKlFyWcA80RlvqZ-JVSDvrmfIm7Rzr3vf__cHdm67kUrMy9y2Ltd5HsI0Rjl6XOGaCDURcH3pjHnQHwL8MkC05nnasgVfvRC49KHVqgV3QVnLpXvICPU/s400/copyright+c.osborne+WIP+Windsinger.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729899858888824338" border="0" /></a>I'm looking forward to getting this whole project wrapped up and putting it all together in its 'promo package' as it were, but actually I'm itching to get started on my next story which right now I have so much more confidence in, I'm really excited about the whole feeling of it.<br />I'll just give myself a little time to get settled and wait for the words to unravel from the images that have been tucked away in my mind all this time.<br />The natural rhythm of my creative wanderings seem to be leaning back towards language and writing at the moment, so I feel its almost time to begin!Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-28327685575907983692012-04-08T15:04:00.008-07:002012-04-08T16:19:27.252-07:00Easter Dragons and Raven Prophets....<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7oLbMd8hRQc04RKlg8OJxVtarbLh3FOiVQiUAilB2T7dEV_ORYTLFn8hNcDCGGfmQBrYgu11AxhVPboPZYsp8CUmjPsWOZ5qkcVyCrqkLnLdqedMua7zqqTsEhpgyz1zfZvV-u6nLCnU/s1600/Easter+Dragon.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7oLbMd8hRQc04RKlg8OJxVtarbLh3FOiVQiUAilB2T7dEV_ORYTLFn8hNcDCGGfmQBrYgu11AxhVPboPZYsp8CUmjPsWOZ5qkcVyCrqkLnLdqedMua7zqqTsEhpgyz1zfZvV-u6nLCnU/s400/Easter+Dragon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154949719061506" border="0" /></a>Here's a very happy Easter Dragon for you by Elora age 7...<br />It seems the Easter bunny still managed to find us at our new house which is great because we love Easter Egg Hunts!<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNyhxJQ58ktjIWnAoXuxk8SJKdI43AyzINPsy3xNzQCDtCKuzpjnH_-zOVW9TZ8hXuXOUfrs8vj4MmPYN9lY4Z_ke3x8O_icOHljsRwm_9roaJ1N8XukgzHvc5ORWcCj28KkDXz7U4_Fc/s1600/Elora.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNyhxJQ58ktjIWnAoXuxk8SJKdI43AyzINPsy3xNzQCDtCKuzpjnH_-zOVW9TZ8hXuXOUfrs8vj4MmPYN9lY4Z_ke3x8O_icOHljsRwm_9roaJ1N8XukgzHvc5ORWcCj28KkDXz7U4_Fc/s400/Elora.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154925807528930" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicD2m1t9IICBbPbdBNwOoCSBQD8zSxQ2ac_k1Z3G1lpUtXNSZZlAHWToZotEURa5aWdngA8oQVnunJIwTFkggDs8E8YO0o9Q9zy6vHI2HRRfqe4cGmv5gvBua2n1Kxo4uVw-PUmwdseBs/s1600/Easter+egg+hunt+3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicD2m1t9IICBbPbdBNwOoCSBQD8zSxQ2ac_k1Z3G1lpUtXNSZZlAHWToZotEURa5aWdngA8oQVnunJIwTFkggDs8E8YO0o9Q9zy6vHI2HRRfqe4cGmv5gvBua2n1Kxo4uVw-PUmwdseBs/s400/Easter+egg+hunt+3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154579264424194" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1vSu9mfVNPwjdZnR72NtTFK0sd3eCSG92asZUvBKu6M1Ibe_pTIO-UwcQma7uKMIcsFpNA84o9OLj0say1qFpV0szswIzMnSk1T-eKOcxify47IXttTCXh6dJ6KtzmlpXxeOCwlGKNZ4/s1600/Elswyth.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 281px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1vSu9mfVNPwjdZnR72NtTFK0sd3eCSG92asZUvBKu6M1Ibe_pTIO-UwcQma7uKMIcsFpNA84o9OLj0say1qFpV0szswIzMnSk1T-eKOcxify47IXttTCXh6dJ6KtzmlpXxeOCwlGKNZ4/s400/Elswyth.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154931141793714" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-ahVhsSDhM-xIx8q1xy2dx8LMw1PSf7iwm4T8xOcZAHvHdbPIeu1Xlz2dFlOrU4jbxS-ANOs-EdHBUQedtgAtKEhKYXfqAjjsuYq57Cn6XCU_F5PjrYQG4df4EG3Nh1yTJ8YQnk-ltY/s1600/eggs.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-ahVhsSDhM-xIx8q1xy2dx8LMw1PSf7iwm4T8xOcZAHvHdbPIeu1Xlz2dFlOrU4jbxS-ANOs-EdHBUQedtgAtKEhKYXfqAjjsuYq57Cn6XCU_F5PjrYQG4df4EG3Nh1yTJ8YQnk-ltY/s400/eggs.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154570329706402" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhquOSXudtawOh16ziydECjxrltie0jEN3jgN-6iTvcJfdE5B2twODeIAppjmz0J4tqW0pCiJvcB9cpcbjR5BUA7VfXZIy938MDIOgGtqvUF7B7mLn5CGI3rBOdBfANciZjkY90uOrEbu0/s1600/Easter+egg+hunt2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhquOSXudtawOh16ziydECjxrltie0jEN3jgN-6iTvcJfdE5B2twODeIAppjmz0J4tqW0pCiJvcB9cpcbjR5BUA7VfXZIy938MDIOgGtqvUF7B7mLn5CGI3rBOdBfANciZjkY90uOrEbu0/s400/Easter+egg+hunt2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154910181395586" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1kITpJDNFURv_9rKKiUk4xNxd9MzO3rPWnNlkKL6v2Pmfm8xZwIsG_tnch5zxpUl5X01jnsYtzcP5HTKCwIqSmJ81X4bobZNHW-0hT2IxorlLl3yCz3C6t5m9HEEDAcaalCOhEzuk-Tc/s1600/eggs2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1kITpJDNFURv_9rKKiUk4xNxd9MzO3rPWnNlkKL6v2Pmfm8xZwIsG_tnch5zxpUl5X01jnsYtzcP5HTKCwIqSmJ81X4bobZNHW-0hT2IxorlLl3yCz3C6t5m9HEEDAcaalCOhEzuk-Tc/s400/eggs2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154565052541730" border="0" /></a>I hope you've all enjoyed a Happy Easter Day! Signs of Spring are gathering every day, the Blackthorn blossoms in the hedgerows are flowering, birds nesting, trees are budding new green leaves... will it be Ash or Oak this year I wonder?<br /><br />Oak before Ash we're in for a splash,<br />Ash before Oak we're in for a soak!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-O5fRr_KaftRZ64aFwoDcO38wifE4wdjXZSw1b1rzM0HOB4EJatllors8kxZQyl8zaUfRiptRq1XfwDsZ4s3JQaHSg1v_g5-NCsqwTeOe3zh8eI55gi10lIDV3ILI3z9LgTUCF1aBTY/s1600/dry+earth.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-O5fRr_KaftRZ64aFwoDcO38wifE4wdjXZSw1b1rzM0HOB4EJatllors8kxZQyl8zaUfRiptRq1XfwDsZ4s3JQaHSg1v_g5-NCsqwTeOe3zh8eI55gi10lIDV3ILI3z9LgTUCF1aBTY/s400/dry+earth.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729159523692731378" border="0" /></a>Though with hose pipe bans already and hard cracked earth we could do with a soak even though the early sunshine has been lovely...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgas7M3lOR_g1eg3qhChEY05BMqIpWkEca2jYx06kRecYEtQNDx_BTrhCLPeuEcj3_dBKZi9MOdVA3CDYwzFvy1n14iXGeelDQW4Xv9YT0Vto_XqCeyLgF0vwjuGNTQ97cgMngHzKmcl4g/s1600/Trees+montage+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 277px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgas7M3lOR_g1eg3qhChEY05BMqIpWkEca2jYx06kRecYEtQNDx_BTrhCLPeuEcj3_dBKZi9MOdVA3CDYwzFvy1n14iXGeelDQW4Xv9YT0Vto_XqCeyLgF0vwjuGNTQ97cgMngHzKmcl4g/s400/Trees+montage+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154555784759410" border="0" /></a>April Oaks and Ash<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Here's a picture of the Badger tracks Elora found last week on one of our spring walks, if you look closely there seem to be big badger tracks and small badger tracks here going in different directions...<br /><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO3qcbVwqi59nXAiDitiB7MuacxPmw-HJQeGcRfbvepLZAnXsf26jE-myVaGo8p3bw5bVOzkCzehDAYNmQX4ejvNuD0jHdI0yfutKTapCXMoluU3BVt0wqXjI1KRQWnZ6rYb5IbRupU9E/s1600/badger+tracks.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO3qcbVwqi59nXAiDitiB7MuacxPmw-HJQeGcRfbvepLZAnXsf26jE-myVaGo8p3bw5bVOzkCzehDAYNmQX4ejvNuD0jHdI0yfutKTapCXMoluU3BVt0wqXjI1KRQWnZ6rYb5IbRupU9E/s400/badger+tracks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729154546507038290" border="0" /></a>And finally the temptations that come of running your own gallery got the better of me this weekend with this wonderful creature, made by local Bath ceramicist David Craddock...<br />This particular sculpture came in to our shop just when I was in the midst of my <a href="http://wordhoards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/flights-of-ravens-and-100th-post-blog.html">Huginn & Munnin Raven series of paintings,</a> and has been whispering to me to take him home ever since!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8wWyGY2Mmq924rrhrFqRLT76bNJR4AqXEiIloF7CLIUk5ZXMc8prQueZKnh4AVmTiMZmuzeTwWWeSYjwr7GKZaEeGcksoiGL6xzVX3xYnBSwkrP4OsyEyXUSJFsaCIZubXuC-DDQpXzI/s1600/Raven2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8wWyGY2Mmq924rrhrFqRLT76bNJR4AqXEiIloF7CLIUk5ZXMc8prQueZKnh4AVmTiMZmuzeTwWWeSYjwr7GKZaEeGcksoiGL6xzVX3xYnBSwkrP4OsyEyXUSJFsaCIZubXuC-DDQpXzI/s400/Raven2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729155197227762882" border="0" /></a>So home he came to keep watch over his Crystal Hoard and to gaze enigmatically out over the woods where the Buzzards roost....<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyum4UI3V6ieVjId23HpmUMZ9rofmGuz9FLjq0MRmnv1jfsBgHonXAROAUaFKLM0jly2d5lHVuAKTPMjpV5Gimj9dKyoBqXp9XcUQpW0kXSIOdDXmfurH2DdCFwQRsg1u70YodQcOZOH8/s1600/Raven+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyum4UI3V6ieVjId23HpmUMZ9rofmGuz9FLjq0MRmnv1jfsBgHonXAROAUaFKLM0jly2d5lHVuAKTPMjpV5Gimj9dKyoBqXp9XcUQpW0kXSIOdDXmfurH2DdCFwQRsg1u70YodQcOZOH8/s400/Raven+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729155203290914290" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC7Eo6ZGx4HAYFCAMVzVCHotvFXbSpjs52UIOPDflhQh7aQdEQkV7r-0PswtChUUYnoDbQtwD24mHo5TyICFSyEdVypuZPyKnqwKklTIULXtCKFmqnk27Iu7tB8NMZLhp1RPT1oflqzQk/s1600/Raven3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC7Eo6ZGx4HAYFCAMVzVCHotvFXbSpjs52UIOPDflhQh7aQdEQkV7r-0PswtChUUYnoDbQtwD24mHo5TyICFSyEdVypuZPyKnqwKklTIULXtCKFmqnk27Iu7tB8NMZLhp1RPT1oflqzQk/s400/Raven3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729155189741368866" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3gkawlxV_eR-Ja7cmnFyjd7_uDKXX1L5awnTTMa1PaggUstUxvKSSE9fJnq9unoZPCd8r8RPB1j1-ag0oMgqOoijBNfJZJd-UQqjIZUG4UAKunLabsMQri9d-rTH9p6AV5SdcKgrvGXo/s1600/crystal+hoard.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3gkawlxV_eR-Ja7cmnFyjd7_uDKXX1L5awnTTMa1PaggUstUxvKSSE9fJnq9unoZPCd8r8RPB1j1-ag0oMgqOoijBNfJZJd-UQqjIZUG4UAKunLabsMQri9d-rTH9p6AV5SdcKgrvGXo/s400/crystal+hoard.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729155211738465490" border="0" /></a>I feel he needs a name but have a feeling he will choose his own when the time is right... meanwhile the shadow-rustle of dusky feathers and wry taunting croak of glitter-eyed prophets fill my imagination with omens and half-heard mythologies, a whisper of wingbeats in the half-light...Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-78916485304599674662012-04-06T16:17:00.006-07:002012-04-06T17:11:37.841-07:00Of Golden Moonrise and Wolfish Tales...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8n2GgNr92IbnZjpWF7H1gXAqoBJW6Ibc0kwOAcOBMzxcaxK3mvzTj1au-KwRrACHt2ldZVnT_RzTiHNNSV65UKajJm8Ob96PjmvTBR3vUZmgnP99lizYKxP8ya55061rTkZNubEJXmpw/s1600/moon1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8n2GgNr92IbnZjpWF7H1gXAqoBJW6Ibc0kwOAcOBMzxcaxK3mvzTj1au-KwRrACHt2ldZVnT_RzTiHNNSV65UKajJm8Ob96PjmvTBR3vUZmgnP99lizYKxP8ya55061rTkZNubEJXmpw/s400/moon1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5728431032378225154" border="0" /></a><br />I couldn't resist trying to get a picture of the Moonrise earlier this evening - she was huge, full and very golden, swathed in soft trailing gossamer scarfs of cloud (though the Moon comes out white in my photo) She seemed a gentle Moon tonight in a soft, still sky, gentling the shadows that are so often hard etched and chill when mooncast.<br />It seems a good image to bring the day full circle... I am still trying to find that elusive day to tie up my three unfinished paintings, when it will come I still don't know. But today I started clearing the outbuilding that will eventually become my studio, before heading off with the children for a picnic across the fields beyond our earthen 'Badger Lane' where the neighbourhood of diggers have turned out all their winter bedding all down the bank.<br /><br />With my eldest whose mind is wonderfully enrapt by mythologies,we began to discuss <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenrir">Fenris, or Fenrir the Wolf,</a> how he was tricked by the Gods into magical chains and how Tyr lost his hand. And then how Fenris eventually was to devour the sun when Ragnarok descended, plunging the World into Darkness and Ice.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoymwZpX336AB-XP2_HB4a4GXCxe7ergLdLxNz1Eun-Aty6IZCwFchrjzZcRM0MLOqWsbnuFbygiyLhjsL41OsTToUx9GCMCN7Pm3zYx95nQk566iIIopZ2mnw17CVJafSUsZ0HXCuvn8/s1600/514px-John_Bauer-Tyr_and_Fenrir.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 343px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoymwZpX336AB-XP2_HB4a4GXCxe7ergLdLxNz1Eun-Aty6IZCwFchrjzZcRM0MLOqWsbnuFbygiyLhjsL41OsTToUx9GCMCN7Pm3zYx95nQk566iIIopZ2mnw17CVJafSUsZ0HXCuvn8/s400/514px-John_Bauer-Tyr_and_Fenrir.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5728443636828403938" border="0" /></a>As we walked home we talked on how Elora might outwit such a Wolf as Fenris if she were to meet him, and between us came up with a story I might one day try to write that has much to do with the Moon and explains why wolves seem (in stories) to howl for the Moon! I will keep the rest under my hat until I manage to tame the story with words on a page! Tee hee!<br /><br />So, Wolves and Moons and then such a beautiful moonrise to end the day, what could be better...? I'll tell you, as we were saying goodbye to some dear friends who had come to play this afternoon what should glide low overhead out of the pale and empty sky, right over our house... A Red Kite! Unmistakeable V-shaped tail and long, broad splayed wings, huge and magnificent! I have only ever seen them in Wales and although I know they are increasing in numbers down in Exmoor, I never imagined we'd see a Kite in Somerset. I was so thrilled, I do hope he visits us again!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJHVM7iPwS1Nv2F4vYxrJdolUg6vSs0KD9FI0tzdSc2SxFibvMdAlb9915D03zKxOEJ5a1wkyhyphenhyphen-EBKoKsIsq9ePZtwKaIqq9vyI5hiXIgcLNhW9rg1mg7511xyDwk0ULRZgTGwdVMgus/s1600/copyright+c.osborne+kite.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 332px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJHVM7iPwS1Nv2F4vYxrJdolUg6vSs0KD9FI0tzdSc2SxFibvMdAlb9915D03zKxOEJ5a1wkyhyphenhyphen-EBKoKsIsq9ePZtwKaIqq9vyI5hiXIgcLNhW9rg1mg7511xyDwk0ULRZgTGwdVMgus/s400/copyright+c.osborne+kite.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5728442070061544322" border="0" /></a><br />I will leave you with a powerful Wolfish poem by my favourite poet Ted Hughes that I have always loved called:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"> 'Amulet'</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);">Inside the Wolf's fang, the mountain of heather.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the mountain of heather, the Wolf's fur.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the Wolf's fur, the ragged forest.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the ragged forest, the Wolf's foot.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);">Inside the Wolf's foot, the stony horizon.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the stony horizon, the Wolf's tongue.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the Wolf's tongue, the Doe's tears.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the Doe's tears, the frozen swamp.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the frozen swamp, the Wolf's blood.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the Wolf's blood, the snow wind.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the snow wind, the Wolf's eye.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the Wolf's eye, the North Star.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br />Inside the North Star, the Wolf's fang.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 51);"><br /><br />By Ted Hughes.</span>Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-67924530451114643512012-03-25T14:07:00.006-07:002012-03-25T15:09:40.371-07:00Oaks and iron... and the new moon in the arms of the old.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVjV-Et-XuENylk6iTYL1OFVCZHcW8NJRCRGhm2jhMWieZdZobqOLonDc65PWbhVufU5CP5n8MaQDepX455O-43W8P_zBRr0C_DqMBYKDmgRd2dmXclYqyzlDSzfZ6M-8wvGlMfM6hVo/s1600/oaks.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 246px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVjV-Et-XuENylk6iTYL1OFVCZHcW8NJRCRGhm2jhMWieZdZobqOLonDc65PWbhVufU5CP5n8MaQDepX455O-43W8P_zBRr0C_DqMBYKDmgRd2dmXclYqyzlDSzfZ6M-8wvGlMfM6hVo/s400/oaks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723945060560063922" border="0" /></a><br />It was a beautiful spring day today, and although I had planned on a good stint of drawing the day meandered into food shop, picnics and playgrounds and some lovely happy time with the children. Even better it was all four of us together - Tony had been gigging last night which meant no band practice today and as we both work six days a week, these opportunities don't happen too often so we made the most of it!<br />So late on in the afternoon I managed to hop over the garden wall into the field with a bag full of charcoal and ink, over to the row of Oaks that have been calling for me to draw them ever since we moved in.<br />I only managed the one ink and dip pen sketch, a bit rough and ready with a clogged up nib, but I really enjoyed just becoming absorbed in the looking and mark making sitting in the spring sun. It seems a long long time since I last put pencil to paper and eye to hand. Good to break the deadlock.<br />One after the other the children clambered over the wall to join me for a few drawings of their own before scampering back across the field to the house. After tea we all decided there was just enough time before bed for a walk, especially with the extra hours daylight.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8cbgn7eMIoogySWmrnJLdzqwYpSanwDASkWULbq63Ri6SwHDFov5CFrML-upwUQgM5Cfs6KBaiAJGOHq0AHApWFsi99FLRTG4Plf_sGz8L8fa2wDUl7SMRMcI7vbEgDahOctH6p5PsTI/s1600/inky+trees.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8cbgn7eMIoogySWmrnJLdzqwYpSanwDASkWULbq63Ri6SwHDFov5CFrML-upwUQgM5Cfs6KBaiAJGOHq0AHApWFsi99FLRTG4Plf_sGz8L8fa2wDUl7SMRMcI7vbEgDahOctH6p5PsTI/s400/inky+trees.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723945055683353906" border="0" /></a><br />The sun was already going down and we were aware as we crossed the rickety Troll Bridge to the sunken wooded lane that the badgers would be emerging soon, so we went cautiously. At the edge of the old laneway someone had recently left a campfire, the embers still glowing in the circle of stones. The drifting woodsmoke would probebly deter the badgers I expect, but further up the track in the bank of the lane there was a whole neighbourhood of very freshly dug badger sets, so with twilight falling we crept softly past.<br />Not much farther along Elora stopped to study some animal tracks in the mud we thought were probebly fresh badger prints, and just there we found a very old horse shoe - a good omen for our new home... and up in the field I found a chunky old hand forged nail, that as I carried along feeling the rough weight of it in my hand made me think of charms of iron against precocious faery folk. Upside down it looks like Thor's Hammer, perhaps I should bind some leather around it and wear it...<br />Two iron charms found at the turning of light to dark...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEEjUgM0suAXv9N8RgKkqd4kNojP4zprtvwugTDNin9-WBBGJpOdibYGsbnoOBldgQBY3dWB8HUjkOyKsI38C0CoI2IdVW1MN6WhwMWAAqOPzGb0TtElnr0e_g_2Pn0SnY07tM8HQwcW8/s1600/horseshoe+and+iron.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEEjUgM0suAXv9N8RgKkqd4kNojP4zprtvwugTDNin9-WBBGJpOdibYGsbnoOBldgQBY3dWB8HUjkOyKsI38C0CoI2IdVW1MN6WhwMWAAqOPzGb0TtElnr0e_g_2Pn0SnY07tM8HQwcW8/s400/horseshoe+and+iron.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723945052507860306" border="0" /></a>Walking on home in the deepening dusk the still leafless arms of the many oaks writhed upwards, black powerful gestures against the fading sunset, and a beautiful delicate eldritch moon rose which Elswyth said was a banana thrown into the sky!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3mb-R4OERFAPCVsFQd5uSt42PvXuw0bNbiD3aJxYNJVvPcVc8jLFkWkocARiwuUqxmDSaXmCukszD6bsBbs11ZsiNyMxbvNtmOSgr6iKZzNdH-_ADxYhH1hQJAMPyMQEGwPKXTwLC8h8/s1600/oaks+in+twilight.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3mb-R4OERFAPCVsFQd5uSt42PvXuw0bNbiD3aJxYNJVvPcVc8jLFkWkocARiwuUqxmDSaXmCukszD6bsBbs11ZsiNyMxbvNtmOSgr6iKZzNdH-_ADxYhH1hQJAMPyMQEGwPKXTwLC8h8/s400/oaks+in+twilight.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723945068966941378" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSim-faGen7S7IeTaRp6MoCzyndDdoQn2JBRoD3QIDtsCHBYCTRdhz3LX7y73ym3ot4ZdxXbD3n_2hg9hFdPYzeLyke5dttGKKnSVdKtDJjGNERNn1vit7f74HM2KrKJ4ULnoZq4N8uXo/s1600/twilit+triad.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSim-faGen7S7IeTaRp6MoCzyndDdoQn2JBRoD3QIDtsCHBYCTRdhz3LX7y73ym3ot4ZdxXbD3n_2hg9hFdPYzeLyke5dttGKKnSVdKtDJjGNERNn1vit7f74HM2KrKJ4ULnoZq4N8uXo/s400/twilit+triad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723945459593990402" border="0" /></a><br />The horseshoe slither of Moon was dancing with Venus and Jupiter making a lovely triad of light in the west, and the Moon was clothed in a ghostly earthshine. A friend tonight described it as 'the new moon in the arms of the old' which I love.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOxlg5iG-SQHKy2PHI6GKjky0tx0j00Mn6nuYs_g09qDL-8sDaNNR4r-zXPjJLMA0ZhWNqDXO0uUWMvqMTRDLXOxEEHxZUC4dmsLpAgJ3I-EjJAAysYj3sOMnce7xR4thcFr7Hs4ZhrS4/s1600/triad.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 245px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOxlg5iG-SQHKy2PHI6GKjky0tx0j00Mn6nuYs_g09qDL-8sDaNNR4r-zXPjJLMA0ZhWNqDXO0uUWMvqMTRDLXOxEEHxZUC4dmsLpAgJ3I-EjJAAysYj3sOMnce7xR4thcFr7Hs4ZhrS4/s400/triad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723945454947948194" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Sorry about my rubbish pictures!)<br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH_IODaltq2KqNYXTznc8LYaE4BPYY_rpygw03UWpztctAYt07iiylX3QMuwAemJlaSoWmF-gBXrUetUXc6V-dc6uYUrKSsKT97BNnSsJEpy9imqCQ48RbyFIGd2SnkkZeR7mE2F6TtwE/s1600/Earthshine.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 377px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH_IODaltq2KqNYXTznc8LYaE4BPYY_rpygw03UWpztctAYt07iiylX3QMuwAemJlaSoWmF-gBXrUetUXc6V-dc6uYUrKSsKT97BNnSsJEpy9imqCQ48RbyFIGd2SnkkZeR7mE2F6TtwE/s400/Earthshine.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723945047773763202" border="0" /></a>Ever since I saw that beautiful spectral glow on the Moon tonight I've had the song 'Earthshine' by Rush in my head, one of my favourite bands. So I will leave you for now with this song... I love it, hope you enjoy it!<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_yz1l1dF6UA" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe>Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355149742719060654.post-18207605016360977052012-03-23T14:15:00.009-07:002012-03-23T15:59:10.080-07:00Old house New house - and another chapter begins...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqazymx5cumt5MV2xFotgBVt0FB3inzHGHc7-H4NWyBeWrp5C5dv0MH_IruN1TWPb8PD3To3JUSJPRQtK_1a0HSha2sOzJ-p_5-SHiQkgc6QlNWnUWm901VCzN__3gTSLBkqn9ioq9Sik/s1600/IMG_0229.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqazymx5cumt5MV2xFotgBVt0FB3inzHGHc7-H4NWyBeWrp5C5dv0MH_IruN1TWPb8PD3To3JUSJPRQtK_1a0HSha2sOzJ-p_5-SHiQkgc6QlNWnUWm901VCzN__3gTSLBkqn9ioq9Sik/s400/IMG_0229.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723204616085263922" border="0" /></a><br />Hello folks! It seems a long while and a lot of big changes ago since I last wrote here...<br />We have moved house after nearly eight years, the longest we've been settled anywhere in the eighteen odd years we've been a couple, so for me at least it was a big deal!<br />I had to talk myself into the move pretty hard, though now I can't believe we've been here in the new cottage for over three weeks already... where did that go! Apparently the new tenants moved into our old house today which feels a bit weird, I hope they will like it there.<br /><br />The first thing we did when we finally got here was to arrange our hearth and straight away it felt more like our home again and I knew it would all be fine. It felt like a bit of a ritual, building the heart of the home and a new fire, all it needs now is our Green man to watch over it and us (which involves getting the drill out when we get chance.)<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8g77a6zFmTW_aH6Wz7IzjukHhDavVBKJoN_LETstAKW4-KMANnORaxxbrRpNrfMeal9r3O5WOvVsNU_MQM9eFykAt1F58miaT4n8ySg6FhBt07-m0z9kds8TbKydo-NJk3ZYprTl8Hs/s1600/IMG_0230.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8g77a6zFmTW_aH6Wz7IzjukHhDavVBKJoN_LETstAKW4-KMANnORaxxbrRpNrfMeal9r3O5WOvVsNU_MQM9eFykAt1F58miaT4n8ySg6FhBt07-m0z9kds8TbKydo-NJk3ZYprTl8Hs/s400/IMG_0230.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723205148982848322" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMXxureiQvzEnTE0k8T1gRSDyZAp3T1rodamVOz2-ArHB90wrO5u_ly4ipSi5JQp1wsmlVGeSFYhrmsfN4OxZrtlnHdcDHE1aM4ZrHkncNw1ow6_CF1kQqMZKEqgMiZsFZhYhHvKQXrII/s1600/IMG_0243.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMXxureiQvzEnTE0k8T1gRSDyZAp3T1rodamVOz2-ArHB90wrO5u_ly4ipSi5JQp1wsmlVGeSFYhrmsfN4OxZrtlnHdcDHE1aM4ZrHkncNw1ow6_CF1kQqMZKEqgMiZsFZhYhHvKQXrII/s400/IMG_0243.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723205150751284066" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgde_GUfHv6cl5NSUNWRSypgNwgsv-V_fVDgxC7NiPqCOnngV4QgLN7utGIKjC4JUzEFEyvZivJPA8pJBvG3hE8mIOUEA1eFsjN_HrdByCH4TjTANzhMQhduMkYE2O6XU_nAIADHu040qk/s1600/IMG_0250.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 319px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgde_GUfHv6cl5NSUNWRSypgNwgsv-V_fVDgxC7NiPqCOnngV4QgLN7utGIKjC4JUzEFEyvZivJPA8pJBvG3hE8mIOUEA1eFsjN_HrdByCH4TjTANzhMQhduMkYE2O6XU_nAIADHu040qk/s400/IMG_0250.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723205155437184674" border="0" /></a>I was very attached to our old place (though very glad indeed to be rid of THAT landlord!) and there is a lot I will miss, the soft summer evenings out in the owlsong and fox-bark dark, the huge sunset filled victorian windows, the quiet wooded lane, the Raven pair and especially the garden. But so far I'm not missing it as much as I thought, with new walks to discover and new rooms to make our own.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHev-0_WhMqpMa6C-MZpAJNwPbgXLsKDEOa3pMtc6DDGzTnJo183f1PdF_g2uUer3o0IvQoE4EFAJVFT6NfkdNnQt5uTIxLs6IjZcUqyZgyLxRUQFb8CsC1lt1c9dHvKlJVQ1SiZPnqoc/s1600/summer+firebowl.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHev-0_WhMqpMa6C-MZpAJNwPbgXLsKDEOa3pMtc6DDGzTnJo183f1PdF_g2uUer3o0IvQoE4EFAJVFT6NfkdNnQt5uTIxLs6IjZcUqyZgyLxRUQFb8CsC1lt1c9dHvKlJVQ1SiZPnqoc/s400/summer+firebowl.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723219586473425634" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The fox bark dark one summer's night</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRfvweXPm-2HIUXdijC8-fxh5tum1Ak4A6OMdb0mBkryye5lretE1onsJKXBfhm8QliDWKW53DGhFERGVbt2Jm34AbHgRQzjFnD_NMIthCDkZl0brFUTb4oGKEmO7Kiy-J3RAxREG4yXg/s1600/garden+1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRfvweXPm-2HIUXdijC8-fxh5tum1Ak4A6OMdb0mBkryye5lretE1onsJKXBfhm8QliDWKW53DGhFERGVbt2Jm34AbHgRQzjFnD_NMIthCDkZl0brFUTb4oGKEmO7Kiy-J3RAxREG4yXg/s400/garden+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723204610304272402" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Our old garden in the early bloom of summer</span><br /><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4rAlRvPFoS6Bqk4CFm6ppDT_1LRXE3iWbp86lNvXlwze5I3isOLhTvIB0CRDsloO7z6Z2pzOXzPwWGEyZ58lhhobfBtvi2FLiHIfE3t_93p7NxTcfzKDmOcZ6Nt4gXvmnVNjGBNtY0pA/s1600/garden2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 321px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4rAlRvPFoS6Bqk4CFm6ppDT_1LRXE3iWbp86lNvXlwze5I3isOLhTvIB0CRDsloO7z6Z2pzOXzPwWGEyZ58lhhobfBtvi2FLiHIfE3t_93p7NxTcfzKDmOcZ6Nt4gXvmnVNjGBNtY0pA/s400/garden2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723204602027339682" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaNZastyBxfepNf2YxgOeaCztFFkQj3Se2Q6fOqU0TTgdrYxFJ0I4CpKs2rQPu48HY1if4fPhJHUS88AJkIdG2btIHHEsYwy-36u3qQGMOjm56huUcqqT9MTOf9IFezt5y5SMLXWm2tJY/s1600/DSCF2886.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaNZastyBxfepNf2YxgOeaCztFFkQj3Se2Q6fOqU0TTgdrYxFJ0I4CpKs2rQPu48HY1if4fPhJHUS88AJkIdG2btIHHEsYwy-36u3qQGMOjm56huUcqqT9MTOf9IFezt5y5SMLXWm2tJY/s400/DSCF2886.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723204598011474882" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSMANdg5uX0hhyphenhyphenR6esI-RQtCrFYqOkfL8IlSlnS5rKzX4X82rSJ2NNJzWc5gs3_TBlPuIBD09BhLxV6GwMOebe3ohEnxJhRdv8zQCsPhY0Bs7Cfbr1Qb6bQ3K5vRYM804n-HYfoESt1Y/s1600/swing.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 273px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSMANdg5uX0hhyphenhyphenR6esI-RQtCrFYqOkfL8IlSlnS5rKzX4X82rSJ2NNJzWc5gs3_TBlPuIBD09BhLxV6GwMOebe3ohEnxJhRdv8zQCsPhY0Bs7Cfbr1Qb6bQ3K5vRYM804n-HYfoESt1Y/s400/swing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723219597110391234" border="0" /></a>It feels like a new phase now the children are a bit older (they are loving it) and I have so many cherished memories tied up in the old place of their baby and toddlerhood, a really special time. We moved there when our first baby Elora was two months old, she took her first steps there...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzcmN0Z9SPUi5Lue7bZFv6VQUGLNigG1cOAn4id7x55DXqgOONO_YjUqgbNyejbCnmUTMYbI4Dit1YB8REPSpXNuUdBdLodO5mC6qAcBLdIx9ffCCsWAqch2VFr-J-4Vj4xZYbQG1yD6M/s1600/learning+to+walk.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzcmN0Z9SPUi5Lue7bZFv6VQUGLNigG1cOAn4id7x55DXqgOONO_YjUqgbNyejbCnmUTMYbI4Dit1YB8REPSpXNuUdBdLodO5mC6qAcBLdIx9ffCCsWAqch2VFr-J-4Vj4xZYbQG1yD6M/s400/learning+to+walk.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723205411922452690" border="0" /></a>Then two and a half years later Elswyth arrived...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZzuxlE8tBv1yCNkOPG49v__okZ5cN2yU8QpXT1Jm61F1IvJBz8YTdxva1CJduz4RjxOCej0RmtQ-nihi9U-yNvariEMoCbiLdk0GvwHOdZZoIhcVobHx6y139pVO49_ckPhfDpD9Onc/s1600/baby+Elswyth.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZzuxlE8tBv1yCNkOPG49v__okZ5cN2yU8QpXT1Jm61F1IvJBz8YTdxva1CJduz4RjxOCej0RmtQ-nihi9U-yNvariEMoCbiLdk0GvwHOdZZoIhcVobHx6y139pVO49_ckPhfDpD9Onc/s400/baby+Elswyth.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723204589411083154" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZQNzahvLj0CXFdaaNgGl1Fjd7ORMtVUdoGPwHOV-MnZdI8WgtU3-GMHzk5WH-2804YFzbxkBCRdI88eGLT8Z8aBbeimqpQtxbEiMfwaNQsjMwCIt_5cDWwavMEZLGz46Nj1R4c-rhnY/s1600/Baby+Elswyth+2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 281px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZQNzahvLj0CXFdaaNgGl1Fjd7ORMtVUdoGPwHOV-MnZdI8WgtU3-GMHzk5WH-2804YFzbxkBCRdI88eGLT8Z8aBbeimqpQtxbEiMfwaNQsjMwCIt_5cDWwavMEZLGz46Nj1R4c-rhnY/s400/Baby+Elswyth+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723219605409179538" border="0" /></a><br />Then these guys...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic93xBbcsldX1IqDC6UMr3_QeOS8jYnc3KchTlL7tJZ4MMqhdh9djsTUJy6QuYAcD4Ng4jmg9YAvWL024WMYk6eKe2sCpHEvoJZPJoqqEISs3J_e5DwHqZffPdVxzbpaKyFdktUU8XxEw/s1600/kittens.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic93xBbcsldX1IqDC6UMr3_QeOS8jYnc3KchTlL7tJZ4MMqhdh9djsTUJy6QuYAcD4Ng4jmg9YAvWL024WMYk6eKe2sCpHEvoJZPJoqqEISs3J_e5DwHqZffPdVxzbpaKyFdktUU8XxEw/s400/kittens.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723205402140742722" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQK_lq07VaJtI5XhvBzCN4suFDX9jwQHjj3rkhtYFGVd_ubdC99HepFmVa_UKd-ubUPyQEi2JryawAPRudl0ZUJSl-VuMHjorBBYeZzK6volUr1D6XX_gJAj12u3lQeQ61HLybhjIf500/s1600/Griffin.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 282px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQK_lq07VaJtI5XhvBzCN4suFDX9jwQHjj3rkhtYFGVd_ubdC99HepFmVa_UKd-ubUPyQEi2JryawAPRudl0ZUJSl-VuMHjorBBYeZzK6volUr1D6XX_gJAj12u3lQeQ61HLybhjIf500/s400/Griffin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723219608098595762" border="0" /></a><br />Our mother cat eventually left home, but we still have Griffin who seems to have settled quite well so far...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7IETtLqhcRqlBZow0mjO6nnyNvkNDUXrRudMm4bbiZCsrwV6TAzGiyljT-JfvMeFNkqSiQvvn5eHpUIF0LGr-CTwhfM8htZnRVdpCW9W52rBIBYav6HtEjpRJiewYmDsXBte_tvOYib0/s1600/IMG_0260.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 278px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7IETtLqhcRqlBZow0mjO6nnyNvkNDUXrRudMm4bbiZCsrwV6TAzGiyljT-JfvMeFNkqSiQvvn5eHpUIF0LGr-CTwhfM8htZnRVdpCW9W52rBIBYav6HtEjpRJiewYmDsXBte_tvOYib0/s400/IMG_0260.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723205160855296130" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyWvEWRNQjcIO4hnwzpsesc-TTPAKfr46GSMClLqVBMslf-lcBCbNAuyYkkmEjPiVqLG2bXJwQ5aR_ggU_PXeOFPF5ZGKp2b8kOXfXIK3wX9otD9MrkYVV4g3bM_90PpPzXmUgrLSF1W0/s1600/IMG_0339.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyWvEWRNQjcIO4hnwzpsesc-TTPAKfr46GSMClLqVBMslf-lcBCbNAuyYkkmEjPiVqLG2bXJwQ5aR_ggU_PXeOFPF5ZGKp2b8kOXfXIK3wX9otD9MrkYVV4g3bM_90PpPzXmUgrLSF1W0/s400/IMG_0339.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723205170933947154" border="0" /></a>I am anxious to get painting again as soon as possible, very conscious of the time ever slipping away and away as ever... though as it happens as a result of moving to a smaller place, paradoxically I will end up with an entire self contained studio in the stone outbuilding attached to the cottage!<br />Our fantastic new landlord has put in a new double glazed window and we just need to get time to plasterboard and put in a floating floor and voila - a beautiful big light studio for me! I'm hoping to get it done by the summer, and I will try to do some progress shots for you as and when it gets going...<br />I have plans to finally crack open a sketchbook on Sunday and start to draw again - its about time too!<br />Bye for now, back soon...Windsongs and Wordhoardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12211375575810428500noreply@blogger.com10