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...!)

Wild Wales and treasures from the sea...

We've just been to Wales, North Pembrokeshire for a long weekend break, probebly the closest thing we'll be getting to a holiday for some time! Wales is our favourite place to go, full of wild green ferny places and wild rocky sky-torn places...

I won't bore you all with endless holiday pics, but I will share with you some of our treasure we found on Newport Sands...

The children had a fantastic time exploring all the beaches we could fit into three days... Newport Sands, Ceibwr Bay, Poppet Sands, White Sands... There were some great rockpools to explore and paddle in! Both girls ended up in the sea up to their waists with all their clothes on one day!These are from Poppet Sands with lovely quartz marbled rocks...

We also visited the Iron Age Hillfort of Castell Henllys again - I like to try and go there whenever I'm in that part of Wales and travel back in time, it is such a lovely place and it deserves a post all to itself which I will do very soon! Ceibwr Bay was also so beautiful that I will do another post for that too...

On our way home we popped by to visit children's author and illustrator Jackie Morris whom I'm sure many of you already know of through her blogs here and here... As ever she was very generous and welcoming and let us nose around her wonderful studio and peep into sketchbooks! The children had brought some treats for the Ginger Clan and were in dog and cat heaven! Elora had also brought her latest book to show Jackie that just happens to have ginger cats in! Here's a couple of pages, they made me smile...

There you go, I haven't got any of my own illustrations to show right now so Elora's fill in nicely!

I'll be back soon with some pictures from the iron age!

More Tuesday life drawings...

30 minute pose

This was my best effort from this morning's life drawing, and unusually for me it's not a bad facial likeness - I usually come back to the face as an after thought if there's time at the end of the pose... (which there rarely is!)
I think I'm actually quite pleased with the legs in this one - I find legs really difficult to get right (and hands, feet, faces, knees...!) There seemed to be a lot of tricky forshortened legs in the poses today, good practice for me!
Here are some of the quick poses...

5 minutes

2 minutes

2 minutes again

2 minutes

5 minutes

and finally a bit of a scruffy 25 minutes...

I was sitting next to a sculptor today and I could tell before I even asked him that he was a sculptor from his drawings - such a wonderful weight of line and sense of form. His drawings were so dynamic and full of energy too.

When I try to draw freely it usually just looks messy rather than dynamic! I think maybe I should get a bit braver and try some different mediums - I quite fancy trying the 2 minute poses with a dip pen and ink, or even brush and ink...

There's even a lady in the group who sometimes tears different coloured papers, some with printed text, and collages the model - fascinatingly good!

I guess I could learn a lot from moving beyond my 'safety zones' though I am enjoying the charcoal pencils!

Maybe next time.....?

(Any other life drawers out there - what mediums do you like to use?)

A May blossom birthday!

Apple blossom and Whitebeam buds opening

The first of May is my eldest daughter's birthday. When she was born the first thing I noticed out of the hospital garden window was the blossom on the apple trees in full flower and every year in our own garden the apple tree blossoms on her birthday.

My second daughter was born when the first snowdrops emerged on the bank at the end of winter, so each has her own special birthday flower!

This year Elora was six, and had a 'Robin Hood ' party, and although its not technically about art or writing, I thought it would be fun to post about it! (And I have only just recovered enough to get around to it!) I hope you'll forgive me the indulgence!

We had lots of fun... first the children decorated foamboard swords and shields (that took hours to cut out and minutes to destroy in wild sword fights!) I have got some fantastic pictures of the wild sword fights and other games but can't really show them without permission from the parents, so here is Elswyth in front of the fantastic huge bell tent we borrowed...

Then, after the battle we set forth on a treasure hunt which had the kids dashing wildly to every nook of the garden, climbing trees and searching in cooking pots!

Next, to my husband's lasting humilation and the kid's glee, he had to dress up as Prince John and become the next game - the children had to sneak up while he dozed off and freeze when he woke until they managed to steal a bag of gold coins (chocolate ones!) Again I had great pics of this but can't really show them without permission. The kids really enjoyed this one and Tony ended up getting chased by hoards of small children wielding foam swords!

And the last activity before the grand banquet was of course an archery contest... First I showed them my beloved longbow and let them try to pull it before demonstrating a few shots... Then it was their turn, except with Elora's new child sized bow (only 10lb draw as opposed to my 36lb - yes I am a weed!) In the end despite the boys' inevitable overconfidence, the contest was won by one of the youngest - a dainty maiden of 3 years old!

I'll leave you with a picture of the cake! My mum takes the credit - cooking is really not my thing at all! Thanks for reading and sharing in the fun!