Oaks and iron... and the new moon in the arms of the old.

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!
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.
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.
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.


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.
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...
Two iron charms found at the turning of light to dark...

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!


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.

(Sorry about my rubbish pictures!)

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!

Of Twilight ramblings and Mood Demons...

Well, for the first time in a long time I had an afternoon to myself while the children were at Grandma & Gramps, but I just couldn't focus on producing any artwork - frustrating. All I managed was this rather half hearted sketch which grew onto the page as a manifestation of my mood!
However, restless as I was today, there was so much stunning imagery around to soak in and store up... Looking up into the blue, blue space between apple leaves and willow leaves reaching towards each other, sunlit leaves and bluest blue sky, there were drifts of willow catkin seeds, small thistledown travellers upon the softest breeze. Now and then the bright Swallow flash of ink blue wings and white throat cut across the flawless window of azure, birdsong everywhere...

And last night we sat out through all the slow changes of twilight till midnight around the fire bowl in the night hushed garden drinking Talisker... So it has been words and not images that have come to me these past days... As we watched and listened to the unravelling dusk I scrawled down the raw thoughts as they unfolded with the changing moments... By no means 'poetry' or any kind of wordcraft, here are a few disjointed lines of night thoughts...

The birds sang the day in, now they sing the day out...
I sit in the woody fragrance of the twilit fire
and hear the birds calling their roosting songs,
back and forth
across the moth-misted meadow...

Bats flicker low over cow parsley glowing
star-pale in the diminishing light.
The fragile rose colours have faded beyond the Sky's edge...
The sky deepens again
from duck-egg frailty
to a sonorous depth of blue.
Venus burns, bright metal cold
between black leaves.
A half moon shimers
beyond the rising smoke haze...

A fox barks out
again and again
far drifting across the night meadow
blood curdled shriek piercing the hush of gathering darkness.
No owls call yet tonight
their absence is a gap in the night's rhythm...
Finally, 10:50 pm
We hear the first scolding Toowhitt - Toowhitt
brisk and sudden...

The circle of firelight
becomes intimate, close
the world retreating into darkness beyond.
A lone screech rises up out of the valley,
a peacock's ragged pride
eerie with imagined grief.

A nail in charred wood
trails vivid turquoise
tendrils of flame...

I hope my twilight ramblings haven't been too tiresome! But it was a beautiful soft evening and there's nothing so soothing as listening the night sounds unfold around a quiet fire as the light changes...!
So anyway, after my somewhat restless day that followed such a peaceful night, I cheered myself up by gathering some flowers from my garden to remind me of moths, twilight, and the arrival of glorious summer! I will share them with you too...


(p.s. Castell Henllys is not forgotten, an Iron Age post is on its way...!)

A Twilight of Owl thoughts...

Here is a little exercise in mark making that I enjoyed... I love owls and love hearing their gently wistful calls float upon the evening. We have a little ghost of a barn owl that likes to fly low in the fields aroung our house, and the calls of tawny owls - the Toowit and the answering Twoooo drift from one end of the field to the other back and forth.

We used to live in a cottage with an ancient Yew tree right outside the bedroom window, and would often be woken in the night to the wild exclamation of the resident screech owl! I didn't mind at all and find the sound of owl calls in the night strangely comforting, it makes me smile before going back to sleep.
I love the twilight, the transitions of shadow and sky so evocative...


Looking out of my window as I write, the sky has turned an eldritch eggshell green at the hedgeline. The young fronded buds of my young silver birch sapling are etched in fragile black like hand drawn ink lines against the sky that deepens through the soft-glowing green, soaring turquoise and up into the richest prussion blue...
There is a single star pricked out above the black silhoetted limbs of my apple tree that seem to yearn skywards towards that very point of light....

I love my westward window - big victorian sash just filled with sky and different every single evening. To watch the slow changes of the twilight through this frame is far better than any television nullity!

I'm not quite sure what this post was originally intended to be about, but on glimpsing the sky from my window it has turned into the thoughts that followed... hope you don't mind!
But to part I'd like to show the wonderful art of Jan Nesbitt.

'Owl light' By Jan Nesbitt

This print is hanging on my wall and I love it! Please do visit Jan's website to see more of her beautiful fine art and illustration. If you are from the west country she is also holding an open studio event in conjunction with the Cloth Road Arts Week between the 1st and 9th of May, contact her through her website for the details.

Now that I've come to the end of this post the sky has shuffled off its vibrant veils of colour and shed them below the hills. My window has filled with blind velvet darkness and the land has drawn close its secretive cloak of shadows. I'll be listening for owls...!