A Giveaway Winner....... birthday cake and pirates!

Thankyou to all who entered my 100th post Giveaway... I loved all your answers to the question of flight - it has such a draw I think on the human psyche in general, thinking back to Icarus, Bladud, even Leonardo De'Vinci with his famous machines... then of course Freya with her cloak of feathers and so many more inter-twined paths of mythology.
I once had a very vivid dream, several years ago now, that I had shapeshifted into a Buzzard and felt such unbounded joy in the freedom of that flight, glorying in the wide open sky and the wind flowing over my feathered head and beneath the strength in my wings, lifting me beyond all troubles.
There is something in the cry of a Buzzard on the wind that always pulls at my soul, a kind of painful longing and yet wilderness savage joy...

There were only the five of you in the end which was a shame, though your words filled my mind with vivid images and that same feeling of the winds rushing past me and through me. I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on this... (Do go and read them if you like over here!)
So, I rolled a dice....
.....and the winner is...... Kate of Kit and Kaboodle!

Here is her answer: 'I think I'd like to be a firefly. Light as air on a summer breeze, illuminating a magical forest landscape inhabited by fairies, goblins and trolls. '

Nice one Kate, just leave me a comment with your address (I won't publish) and your preference of either 'Thought' or 'Memory' and it shall be winging its way to you! Hurrah!

It has been a busy kind of a weekend as it happens... of course it was Elswyth's 5th Birthday today, though she had her party yesterday which was fantastic! An arty party with sticking and painting and clay modelling, the kids were all so good and really seemed to enjoy it.
So in fact she ended up having a kind of two-day birthday, with a cake on Sunday's party....

And another cake at Grandma and Gramp's today!

Lucky girl! And she is very pleased indeed with the new Ukelele we got her...

Elswyth and Grandma

Hopefully she'll take after her Dad who was gigging on the Saturday... she adores the lead singer Wendy and can't wait to have some Uke lessons with her!
Just for fun, heres a couple of videos we managed to get... its quite a new band, this was their 3rd gig, and they've started writing more and more of their own numbers now too... Elswyth's Dad is the one dressed as a pirate... oh hang on there... um... the pirate with the gold strat guitar then!
This ones a cover:(My feeble camera mic distorts the vocals somewhat... sorry about that)



And this one was done by the professional photographer - a lot sharper, less distorted.



Ahaarrr! Hope you enjoyed them...

Dragon Boys! ..........and three days to go for a Raven Giveaway!

Thought I'd just show you the children's portrait commission I finished last week...
These are two brothers, in fact the brothers of 'Lucy Rose' that I did a portrait of back in the Autumn. Apparently when they saw their sisters they liked it so much they requested one of themselves... its really nice for me as an aspiring children's book illustrator to have that come from the children!

The Dragon Boys! Lewis and Cadan.

I was actually quite happy with this one, it was good fun, though the decision to paint them in armour came quite late on in the drawing stage... they definately didn't look right riding a Dragon in T-shirts! I hope they like it! I am currently waiting to hear from them after the weekend...

And finally don't forget....


There's still a few days left to enter my 100th post blog Giveaway to win your choice of a mounted giclee print of one of these fellows... Just leave me a comment on the original post here, and I'll be putting names in a hat on Sunday! (Would be nice to have a nice full hat!! Perhaps with feathers on!)

Flights of Ravens... and a 100th post blog Giveaway!

Hi folks! I've finally got around to posting some more of my Raven series to show you! Time has been even shorter than ever so I'm amazed I managed to paint at all as the weeks whizz past far, far too fast!
Between the usual juggling act of running the business full time and being Mum, with Elswyth's 5th birthday skipping briskly along (an arty party to organise as we speak!) dummy book work and portrait commissions (one down to show you soon...) we are also preparing to move house after being well and truly settled for almost eight years. Its proving to be a bit of a wrench for me but anyway, more on that another day!
So, on to the Ravens...
These first two smaller ones I will be putting into a local Art Show in March which will be interesting - I've never exhibited work before, and I happen to know there's some really seriously good professionals entering work too... gulp! They'll be joined by two of the larger paintings in the series but I haven't decided which ones yet...

'Thought'

'Memory'

Here's some closer details of the two...


I am having my trusty fine art repro chap make me some Giclee prints of these two on lovely Somerset Velvet paper and will eventually choose two of the larger ones to do as Signed Limited Editions as well (when I finally paint some I like enough!)

So I have decided to celebrate reaching my 100th post by having a Giveaway to win your choice of a mounted print of either 'Thought' or 'Memory'.
All you need to do is to be a follower of my blog, and leave a comment on this post answering the question:

If you could take any winged form and travel anywhere in this world or another, where would the winds take you and to what purpose?

Answers can be as long or as short as you like. Just a bit of fun really! Though I put it to my daughter at bedtime because she couldn't sleep and all sorts of fantastical flights leapt to mind! I will run this until Sunday the 12th which is the day of Elswyth's birthday party, to give everyone plenty of time to dream of wingbeats on the tides of winds....!


So, if you haven't had enough of Ravens yet, I'll show you a couple more....
These next two are studies for the larger one coming up...


And here is the next large one, though its a bit blurry and hard to photograph... I guess this will be called 'Huginn & Muninn III' to follow the series so far...


Huginn & Muninn in case you haven't caught the previous posts, are the two birds of the Norse God Odin, who fly all across Middle Earth and Asgard bringing him news of all the going's on of Men, Beasts, Gods and Giants. He gave them the power of speech and they were seen to be birds of portent, wingbeats tracing feather trails of Omens across the storm-wracked skies...

Here's some details of 'III' complete with some rather self-indulgent shots of the wet-on-wet washes as they were drying. I wish they could stay like that sometimes with all the lovely rich liquid depths of colour, paint for paint's sake!








I hope you've enjoyed this rather long Raven post! I've nearly got it out of my system now, just one to be finished on the drawing board and the one still in my head which is still stubbornly refusing to manifest on the paper!
Can't wait to hear some of your ideas for the Giveaway... Bye for now!