I’ve created a new zine/booklet titled ‘If You Are Lost You May Be Taken’. It’s different from my Night Wood booklet in some ways, although both have 16 highly detailed, illustrated pages of my pen and ink illustrations. It is an illustrated book version of a piece of writing that featured on the RTE Irish radio programme, Keynotes, a few years ago.
The piece was written as a sort of response to David Wagoner’s poem, Lost and loosely inspired by the myth of Daphne in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. I like to describe it as a strange, poetic tale from the forest, haunting and the stuff of dreams.
Pages from my If You Are Lost You May Be Taken zine.
The booklet/zine is now available to buy in my Etsy shop and soon on my website shop.
I was very pleased to receive it. I’ll treasure it.
To find out more about Sacred Time and to see all the inside illustrations, check out Christine’s website. There you can find out about her other books, writings and other work. If you’re interested in buying a print of any of the pen and ink illustrations, contact me.
Finally done, my Night Wood nature zine/booklet. I’m pleased with how it’s turned out. I decided to call it ‘Night Wood’ instead of ‘Night Forest’ because I started thinking about what the words ‘forest’ and ‘wood’ mean to me.
Night Wood nature zine/booklet.
The word ‘forest’ conjures up a vast area of trees, sweeping over the landscape into the distance. On the other hand, when I think of a wood, I imagine a smaller, more intimate place of trees. So, my booklet title is Night Wood.
Night Wood nature zine/booklet.
I do like the word ‘forest’ though. It is the Old French word, ‘forest’, which later became ‘forêt’. Forest probably came from the Late Latin words forestem silvam meaning ‘the outside woods’, or the woods beyond the fenced park.
The word ‘wood’ comes from the Old English word wudu meaning a collection of trees. Wudu may come from the Old Norse word viðr or the Swedish word ved, meaning tree or wood. Another possible source is the Welsh word gwydd, meaning trees. This website mentions a few other interesting forest words including Silvanus, the Roman God of woods and fields from which we get ‘silviculture’. Apparently Silvanae were goddesses who accompanied Silvanus… (I can see some further research and pictures that might materialise).
My Night Wood nature zine/booklet is full of wildlife, including badgers, deer and an owl, beneath the moon. All special to me. I like getting lost in intricate detail. There isn’t a story, just a few words – enough to set the scene and tie the book together. The book is A5 size and comes with a black, C5 tie and washer envelope. I like to think of it as a special gift, more than a card, a little book to treasure for anyone who loves woods, trees and wildlife as much as I do. It’s available in my Etsy shop and my Reflections shop.
I woke before dawn to see a crescent moon high in the southern sky. Now it’s a beautiful bright cold day with frost on the lawn and on the rooftops. I am longing to get out into the woods, but the car is broken, I’ve put my back out and we’re in lockdown. I’ll have to wait. Instead I’ve found a patch of sunlight to work on my new ‘forest’ book.
This book is about the forest at night. It’ll be titled Forest or Night Forest and will be mostly made up of illustrations with minimal text. It’ll be similar to a zine, but I like to think it’ll be more than a zine – I’m printing it on good quality, 160gsm paper.
So far I’ve drawn three two-page spreads of nocturnal forest scenes. One is of a nightjar flying at the edge of a forest on an early summer evening:
Nightjar scene in my new forest book. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Nightjars are such special birds, I have a bit of a thing about them.
The other two-page spread is of a family of badgers in a forest glade. The full moon has risen higher, it’s bold and bright in a dark, starlit sky:
A badger family scene in my new forest book. Click on the image for a larger version.
I intend to make limited edition prints of these illustrations on white, linen paper. I’m hoping the printers I use are able to take on print jobs during this lockdown. Meanwhile, I’ll plan the other pages in the book. These will feature owls, deer, woodmice, moths and possibly bats.
I have a bit of a thing about forests. I guess I’m a nemophilist – from the Greek nemos, which means grove, and philos, which means affection. That also means I’m a dendrophile, a lover of trees. And then I’m also a bit of a nyctophile, someone who loves night and darkness. Interesting, but right now I love sunshine and am looking forward to the light and warmth of spring.
Flatropers Wood, East Sussex – a bit of a favourite.
Note: A4 digital prints of both of these illustrations are now available in my Reflections shop and Etsy shop.
Imagine it’s all quiet, except for the rustlings of woodmice and voles on the forest floor. Listen. In a shadowy tree top close by, sits a tawny owl hunched in his ruffle of feathers. Soon he’ll call to his mate. Be still and sense the forest; its blend of blue shadow, its lonesome shafts of bone moonlight outlining naked branches in shimmering white. Watch as a badger ventures out, rummaging in the leaf litter for earthworms beneath the tall oaks and beeches. Then a hind appears at the edge of the trees… The inside cover of Deer in the Night Wood, my printed papercut book. Click on the image to enlarge.
I’ve created an altered book inspired printed book, Deer in the Night Wood, because I was curious about whether it would work. There are no words in my book, the paragraph above just sums up the atmosphere of the night forest I had in my mind when I was drawing the inside cover.
The book is made of six sheets of card, including the cover, which is in colour.
Making a printed papercut book – a sheet ready for cutting.
My pen and ink illustrations are printed on both sides of the card in mirror image, so the scene is on the front and back of each page. The printer did his best to align them, but it’s very difficult to make the fit exact.
The reverse side of a page showing papercut.
I papercut each sheet separately and folded them in half. Then I trimmed off the edges of each folded sheet – except for the cover – because the pages creep out beyond the edge of the cover and I didn’t adjust the size of them before printing. Finally I sewed the pages together with two stitches along the spine with a strong needle and embroidery thread.
Here is the finished thing, handsewn and slightly smaller than A5 in size:
My printed papercut Deer in the Night Wood book.Printed papercut book, Deer in the Night Wood, open to show the layers.Printed papercut book with a black string and washer envelope.
I had a few of these books printed as gifts for my family. Each book may be printed, but the papercutting is by hand, which is quite a bit of work. I’m wondering whether they would sell? I’m not really sure. What do you think? Perhaps they are just meant as gifts, my gifts.
Earlier this year I was contacted by author Christine Valters Paintner, who asked me whether I’d like to do some illustrations for her new book, Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life. Of course I would! I was very pleased to get involved.
Christine describes herself as a poet, a hermit and a mystic. She is also Abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a photographer, spiritual director, pilgrim guide and teacher. Originally from the US, she now lives in Ireland.
Sacred Time takes the reader through the various phases of time, as marked out by the breath, by the hours of the day, the days of the week, etc. and by the different stages of life. It is a beautifully reflective book with poems and practices that encourage us to slow down, to contemplate and consider how we spend our time. We become more aware of our own path through life and the rhythms and cycles of nature that can give perspective as well as serve as anchors and inspiration.
I illustrated each of the eight chapter headings in pen and ink. Below are a couple of my illustrations. Click on the images to see larger versions.
The journey through the Hours is a poetic and symbolic journey through the movements of the seasons in each day. Each moment of the day has a certain kind of quality and invitation and we are invited to make those conscious and to live our lives in response to them.
From Chapter Two: Rhythms of the Day
You can see all my illustrations on Christine’s website here.
Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life comes out in February 2021. Keep an eye on Christine’s website Abbey of the Arts for updates and check it out for information about her programs, poetry and other books.
Back in December last year, I was sketching a drawing of Jesus while listening to Jocelyn Pook’s film music until I could take no more, my pen or pencil sometimes scratching in time to her unusual phrases. (One score was based on Romanian priests singing an Orthodox Liturgy and then played backwards!)
Dancer in the Grotto
My sketches were for the cover of a new book by author Caroline Greville, who wrote Badger Clan, a book I designed the cover for. I was given a few guidelines in the brief – joy and celebration; perhaps Jesus talking to a group of people as a shadowy figure. Caroline liked my Dancer in the Grotto card, so I had an image to start from.
She also mentioned that she liked the images of the Turin Shroud. I like them too. I like the serene face with closed eyes, the light shining above the head imprint and the ethereal quality of the images. I also like the story and controversy behind the shroud.
Turin Shroud – taken from Wikipedia.
I chose to use another grotto photo that was taken in the shell grotto in Margate a few years ago. The date of the grotto is uncertain, but there was a fad for creating shell grottos in the 18th century so it might date from then. The photos, enhanced in photoshop, have a haunting beauty with my drawings super-imposed.
Here is my final cover design with the title text:
The book is “a collection of short stories told from the viewpoints of characters found in the gospel narratives.” It is out today and can be bought from Faithbuilders, Waterstones or The Book Depository.
My concertina greetings cards have been selling really well and I have made a new one, Owls and Blackbirds. It features a pair of blackbirds at their nest with busy bluetits and vegetation on one side. On the other side there is a night scene with a family of tawny owls among the leaves and branches of oak trees beneath a starry, moonlit sky:
Owls and Blackbirds Concertina Card – the front side.Owls and Blackbirds Concertina Card – the reverse side.
I have also just made another little illustrated booklet, The Barn Owl of Baconsthorpe. I’ve decided to sell my little booklets as a bundle of four:
Four little nature books
I had a request for a print of my River Wife image (I wrote about the book The River Wife in a previous post). I then decided to make the design into a card:
I took a chance and had some enamel mugs made featuring three badgers:
Unfortunately I didn’t remove the white background when I uploaded the image for printing, so it appears as a grey band around the mug (you can just see it in the photos). That’s something I’ve learnt now :( However, I’m impressed by the high quality of the mugs.
My concertina cards, bundle of booklets, The River Wife greetings card and the Three Badgers enamel mug are all now available in my shop and Etsy shop.
Over the past couple of years I have been putting together a little book, Dusk, Night, Dawn. It is a collection of nature writings about my encounters with wildlife during the twilight and night hours here in the UK and on trips abroad.
The book started when I was having mentoring with Amy Liptrot. She commented that much of my writing was about dusk. I then collected a few pieces together and set out to have more experiences that I could write about. These included the time when I saw nightjars in King’s Wood, Kent and looking for bears in Romania. Some of my pieces have been published in magazines, on websites or blogs and in anthologies, but I have put them all together in one book and have included pen and ink illustrations to accompany many of the pieces. Here is an example:
Bird of the Black Waters.
I submitted my book to WriteNow in 2017 and it was shortlisted. I submitted it to Spotlight Books and again it was shortlisted, but it didn’t win. It was suggested that I should include more of myself in the book and make it into a narrative. Well, it is what it is, a collection of writings like an anthology. I have sent it to a couple of publishers but I am expecting to hear the same problems with the book, so I won’t be surprised when I hear back from them. In the meantime I’ve put together a mocked up copy with the help of my partner Kevin.
It took Kevin quite a while tp format and lay out the book ready for printing and help design the cover. He took it on as a project.
Having got the printing done, I was keen to investigate ‘perfect binding’ to put it together. This means that when the pages are put together, there is no creep. I researched how to do perfect binding and Kevin made me a page vice. Some commercial printers only do staple bound, so I chose to do the whole thing myself.
Folding paper for making the book by perfect binding.Homemade book clamp.
I applied PVA glue to the vice-bound page edges and attached the cover.
While the pages were in the book clamp, I clued the spine using PVA glue.
Here is the finished book, front and back:
Dusk Night Dawn bookDusk Night Dawn back cover.
The process was tricky but fun. I’ll wait to see what the publishers say before I do anything else with it.
In my previous post about my latest altered book, I mentioned that one of the pages – the fox page – reminded me of the Millefleur(s) art style. Millefleurs means “thousand flowers” in French and was a style using many flowers in the background of European tapestries between 1480 and 1520. The style was brought back into fashion by William Morris and his company Morris & Co.
I looked again at tapestries and particularly like Tapestry: Greenery designed by John Henry Dearle for Morris & Co. It hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, US and features deer, rabbits and a fox beneath chestnut, oak and pear trees:
Tapestry Greenery designed by John Henry Dearle for Morris and Co. Photo credit Plum Leaves on Flickr.
I love botanical detail in tapestries and paintings, especially with my recent rekindled interest in plants. i like the way individual flower species are depicted. I first really took note of millefleur in Botticelli’s Primavera in which there are about 190 species of flowering plants depicted and many have symbolic meanings:
Primavera painting in my Botticelli book showing flowers throughout the painting.
I have decided to write/illustrate another little book that I’m titling The Tapestry Fox inspired by Tapestry Greenery and of course, the foxes that live around my way.
A few notes, ideas and doodles for The Tapestry Fox.
The fox as totem animal is coming back into my life. it is a good luck animal for me. I’ll follow it wherever it takes me. I’ve worked on a few ideas for the book:
Fox in the Woodland – a possible illustration for my new little book, The Tapestry Fox.The Tapestry Fox cover idea.
In the first picture above I’ve added teasel, bramble, oak and hornbeam – I try and add plants that can be identified. i haven’t managed the sinewy trunks of hornbeam. I particularly like adding bramble (of the rose family there are over 300 species in the UK and deer love it so you can often tell if a deer has passed by the bitten ends of new bramble shoots. Bramble was used for fencing where barned wire is used now and then there are blackberries! A great plant!)
While on the fox trail, I’ve been experimenting with the idea of millefleur and foxes at the woodland edge in a larger, A3 picture. I’ve called it Millefeuilles Fox – Thousand Leaves Fox:
Millefeuilles Fox
In the picture stars are sprinkled among the leaves and plants so the sky becomes the land and the land sky. I like to think it might be an allegory of some sort with a hidden meaning :)
I’m looking forward to visiting the woodland edges, making sketches, taking photos and gathering a few plant specimens. With spring comes primrose, white dead nettle, yellow archangel, lords and ladies, stitchwort, herb robert, red campion, nettles….
