I’ve written and illustrated three more pieces for my local Preston Pages magazine, Fox Hour for April, Sparrowhawk for May and Swifts for June.
Preston Pages – Wildlife ReflectionsFox HourSparrowhawk over Brighton.Swifts
As I write in the Swifts article, I’m doing a swift survey in my neighbourhood. It’s made me much more aware of all the activity happening in the skies above the city. Swifts are declining and the RSPB is monitoring them and encouraging people to put up swift boxes. To learn more, and see how you can help, go to the RSPB website.
The breeding season for many birds is well underway. Some birds are even on second broods. In May I went out to the woods and surrounding countryside to watch and listen out for birds and other wildlife but also to see what I could collect in the way of discarded eggshells and any other natural finds. Below are my eggshells – so far this year:
Eggshell Finds.
In the photograph you can see two song thrush, a magpie, a blackbird, some sort of wild duck and a moorhen. In my wanderings I’ve also found a pike’s head, but that’s a bit too gross to show here! (I need to clean it somehow for displaying.)
I’ve been keeping an eye on a crow’s nest in an ash tree next door. I can just glimpse some frantic wing flapping through the leaves – fledgings? I’m guessing the young will leave the nest soon, but the parents are still tooing and froing and circling their territory.
On the subject of nests, in May I went to see the exhibition, Natural Selection at the Towner Gallery by Andy and Peter Holden. Peter Holden is an ornithologist and his son is an artist so they teamed up over a period of years to create ‘Natural Selection’. The exhibition shows a collection of nests from around the world:
Nests from Around the world – Natural Selection Exhibition.
a video installation, various creations inspired by nests,
Artwork inspired by the bower bird’s nest.
and a room of hand-painted egg replicas in boxes:
Boxes of Handmade Eggs – very clever, but not as good as finding eggshells.
I like to think I straddle both arenas, the art and science of nature, sometimes art has a slight edge, but overall I’m a naturalist. Anyway, I’ve started to keep some of my small natural finds in a printer’s tray my sister gave me for my birthday:
Natural Finds Collection – jay feathers, piece of warthog tusk, vole skull, eggshell, piece of lava and a gemstone.
Inspired by the exhibition, I’ve decided to create natural exhibits using old cigar boxes. Here is one I’ve started:
Box of Natural Finds – including rabbit skull, pheasant feather, dried fungus and oak leaf.
As I have a thing about nests, I’ve made another altered book, Buzzard’s Nest and a Song Thrush Nest box frame. Both are in my Etsy Shop.
Towards to end of last year a friend on Facebook, Meryl of Black Cat Floral Designs, suggested that I create some wedding invitations with woodland, wildlife or Goddess themes. It’s taken me some time to work out quite what’s required as there seem to be so many variations out there, I’m a bit in the dark about the whole subject.
Anyway, I’ve created some designs and had a few samples printed to see how they look.
Woodland Wedding Invitations
They include Woodland Wildlife – with rabbits;
Woodland Wildlife Wedding Invitation
A springtime leafy one;
Spring Woodland Wedding Invitationn
A ‘Goddess’ one;
Goddess Wedding invitation
and Two Deer one which might work best for an autumn wedding;
Two Deer Wedding Invitation
They are currently simple and unfolded on stiff white card but I plan to make some ivory ones on folded card.
Based in Chester, Meryl creates wonderful things with flowers for any occasion. See below and check out the galleries on her website.
For the March issue of Brighton’s Preston Pages magazine my piece, Dawn Chorus in the City was featured along with the illustration below:
Dawn ChorusDawn Chorus in the City – article in the Preston Pages
The Preston Pages’ Dawn Chorus in the City was a shorter version of a piece that was originally published on the City Creatures blog and which I’ve now added to my other nature writing website, From the Fields and Woods. I wrote the piece last year and there have since been changes to the garden my flat looks down on.
In January our next door neighbour had some of our trees cut because she wants more light in her garden. i felt very sad about this and requested that as little as possible be cut so the garden was still a wildlife haven. Below you can see photos of before the cut and after. I’m used to it now but the trend in cutting down city trees saddens me whether they are in the street or in peoples’ gardens. I’m all in favour of a bit of wilful neglect so wildlife can flourish in peace – and I mean birds, foxes, badgers or whatever (I draw the line at rats).
View from my balcony in winterGarden after tree cutting
It’s not so bad!
Anyway, I’d like to create a Dawn Chorus artwork beyond an illustration. So far I’ve created a candle lantern:
Dawn Chorus Lantern
Here is an MP3 recording of the dawn chorus from my balcony:
I still have a thing about foxes and have been watching them wandering around the gardens next door in the snow. I hope they find enough to eat.
Last year I took photos of the fox family sunbathing in the garden next door. One of the photos was taken in January, it must have been warm.
These are the inspiration for my fox ‘altered books’ except I draw them in a woodland clearing. I have yet to do an urban fox.
I’ve just created a pocket ‘altered’ notebook, Fox Wood, featuring a fox among some ivy covered trees and a couple of rabbits hidden in the pages. It’s now for sale in my Etsy shop
There’s an owl theme going on at the moment. First I’ve been out looking for urban owls recently to write about for my book. So far, no luck, but I’ll keep trying.
Then I discovered a lovely post about my altered books on the website My Owl Barn and was very pleased to sell my Owl Altered book on Etsy:
Owl Altered Book (click on image to enlarge).
Yesterday I completed a commissioned Owl at Dusk Box Frame, similar to the one featured below:
Owl at Dusk Boxframe
With the box frame I decided to hide a poem, Nature by Mary Oliver, written on parchment paper at the back of the box frame behind the final picture. I like the idea of hiding messages and hidden art for anyone who can’t resist opening up the back of the picture.
Below are some images of the box frame process including the back page of the box frame. From the front all you can see of this layer is a bit of sky and moon, but it’s a complete picture that features more trees and a badger.
Owl Box Frame in ProcessNature Poem by Mary OliverBack Picture of Boxframe
Here is another tawny owl picture that I might make into a card:
Pearlescent and moon-painted, dusk is falling. In a corner of the park a male blackbird perches in the naked branches of a sycamore tree, yellow bill, eye a ring of gold. He flicks his tail and starts to sing an enquiring, fluty song. Listen…
Preston Pages – A Song at Dusk
I’m very pleased to have a second piece of writing, A Song at Dusk, along with a picture in February’s issue of Preston Pages, one of Brighton’s free magazines :)
Blackbirds at Dusk
The original A4 illustration above is available to buy, unmounted, mounted, framed or unframed. Contact me if you’re interested.
At the beginning of the year I decided to design some new t-shirts. Finally I’m getting round to it.
My first new design is Dusk Night Dawn. I’m always drawing deer and this time I thought I’d add the words Dusk Night Dawn (the title of my book!), as I really like these times of day.
Dusk Night Dawn T-shirtDusk Night Dawn T-Shirt
I wanted to reflect the moon in the shape of the silhouetted deer and trees. It’s now up in my Teemill online shophere.
People often leave furniture and bits and bobs in our street so one evening late last year I went out in search of some wood to make a shelter for the pigeon that had adopted us. The pigeon, who we named Beaky, had been sitting day and night in the corner of our balcony getting very wet.
Beaky at the window in summer.
I didn’t find anything suitable for Beaky but I did find a small bureau standing in front of a house with a notice on it saying “Free. Please Take.”
I phoned Kevin who came up with the car and we took it home. Here it is:
New Bureau
Now I have a new space to write and draw in among the plants. It’s become a special corner of the living room where I keep my wildlife treasures – feathers, eggshells etc, my art and writing bits and pieces all lit by a little paper star light my sister gave me for Christmas :)
I’ve been making papercut cards. There have been a few birthdays this month so it’s been good to make cards instead of buying them or using one of my printed cards.
First I made some of my greetings card images sepia in photoshop and printed them out, two of each.
Sepia Printouts
I cut out the images and stuck them on to a folded pieces of white card, one outside and the other inside.
Sepia Campfire Card Uncut
On the campfire card I cut out areas between the trees on the top layer creating a layered sepia card of a woodland campfire.
Sepia Campfire Papercut Card
I played around with some of my other designs.
Star Goddess Sepia Card – a composite of Star Goddess and Anteater Dreaming.
The glued image can snag a bit when cutting which doesn’t happen when I cut my altered books and box frames which may be because this card is quite thin. I’ll find a way of clean cutting them and try a few other things out soon.
