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1st June. Tom went fishing and came home with three beautiful shining fresh mackerel. Hannah spent the day on the farm with the coloured horses and came home tired and happy. Cats and dogs and I walked through a tunnel of green to the top of the hill where it was hot and a warm wind blew. Then we went home to paint.
Sent off manuscript for novel and ideas for a book to publishers and now I wait.
Drew roughs for a book for Hachette in France, a charity book to celebrate 30 years of a childrens charity. The artwork has to be finished by July, and in the autumn there will be an auction of all of the work to raise money for the charity. The publisher chose the third of the images.
Settled back into working on Singing to the Sun and had an email to say that I had been nominated for the British Fantasy Society awards. It seems that someone had nominated me for the MBF cards for the awards. Many thanks to them, whoever it is. Unfortunately I can't go to the awards showcase event as I already have to be in two places at once that evening. So pleased though. as I sit here struggling from day to day to try and keep some kind of order and balance to things and paint it is wonderful to get such good news.
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3rd June. Early morning walking in heavy mist, and the weight of water in the air holds the heaven scent of honeysuckle perfume close. All around the small fresh fledged birds are being fed by frantic parents. The landscape is a small circle of visibility, but the colours so intense. All is covered in small shining beads of water.
Home to dry off and get warm and paint.
4th June. Painted all day yesterday, all day today. The world is still closed in by mist. Work going nowhere. Painting ugly. Trying too hard maybe, or just fed up.
Difficult to find the answer. The world is beautiful, wrapped in its cloak of mist, intimate, all in soft focus, damp. Outside as the day goes on and painting goes no better the cloud begin to roll back like a soft wave and by evening there is blue sky and stars again.
Try again tomorrow.
5th June. It is a beautiful day with a soft warm breeze and the bluest sky. A day for walking. After all the mist it is good to be able to see some of the rest of the world.
Woke up with a feeling that there was yet another piece of white paper in my studio waiting for me to spoil.
Later......A day full of blue sky and butterflies, distant buzzards, skylarks and swallows. Tidied studio in an attempt to shake off the self doubt that clogged up my head and my brushes and left me feeling like a rabbit in a car's headlights. Then, in a tidy workspace, watched by the owl who was pleased to be moved to a new vantage point, started trying to draw again. |
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6th June. Earlier in the week had painted a bear and then decided that it was awful and I couldn't paint anymore and that I had probably painted my last picture. Outside of work life was beautiful, inside a nightmare! Walking in the day and the skies are full of the first fledging of raven and rook and jackdaw, all taking their first stumbling, tumbling flights.
In the evening sat on the cliff top while Tom fished and the sun tipped behind the hill and the chill of summer evening by the sea crept up in the shadows.
Having finished the new bear painting looked at the old one only to find that it wasn't the worst painting in the world after all and all judgment had flown out of reason, like jackdaws from a chimney pot!
The image was commissioned by Brigitte Le Blanc at Hachette France for a book to celebrate thirty years of the charity Enfance et Partage. The book has thirty stories and thirty paintings by famous illustrators and writers in France and a percentage of all sales will go to the charity and. All of the artwork will be auctioned in the autumn to raise money for the charity.
Tom caught four fish, but all, except the sea bass that he threw back because he wasn't sure what it was, before I could stop him, were pollack.
And meanwhile there are ladybirds and dragonflies and pearl edged fritillaries on the hillside and today I saw a yellowhammer, common when I was a child but so rare now.
The wind has pulled the prayer flags ragged. I still feel a little the same. Fourth time lucky on the princesses painting? Fingers crossed.
8th June. Walked at Porth Llisky and the light one way was muted and layered, pearl-like, and the other deep blue and rich. Birdsong and stillness as voices from fishing boats carried words across the water.
| 9th June. Less said about painting the better. Today Hannah did the Race for Life at Scolton Manor, in aid of cancer research. Beautiful day, wonderfully well supported and she ran for her Granny who died from cancer only a few weeks ago and came 72nd out of over 2000. Very proud of her. Missgivings about cancer research though as I do not condone anything that involves experimenting on animals. |
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In the evening, fishing as the sun goes down.
14th June. The last few days have been spent away from home, not painting, but working on roughs and being away from the oppression of work going badly!
So, stayed in Stony Stratford with Robin and drew and read and found a book about dragons. Watched the new Pirates of the Caribbean which was a rollicking tale of nonsense and adventure and the next day watched Pan's Labyrinth, possibly the most shockingly violent film I have ever seen, but also beautiful.
Finished reading Mrs Chippy which was sad and funny and wonderful too. Then on Wednesday we went to London for the CLPE Poetry awards and saw Michael Rosen, the new children's laureate, who I recognized from the drawings of him by Quentin Blake.
Today began an epic journey home by train, from Bicester, changing at Banbury and Reading and Cardiff and Swansea and Carmarthen and waiting and waiting, sometimes up to an hour for connections. At Banbury a blackbird sang. From Oxford to Reading a beautiful young woman next to me wrote a mathematical essay with number patterns dancing on the page. At Reading confusion as no-one from the train services knew where Haverfordwest even was, so they put me on the train to Cardiff, which was closer than Reading. Red kite and the White Horse Hill at Uffington, Wayland's Smithy hidden from view. Creeping closer to home, sleeping and reading Mythago Wood, a present from a wonderful publisher who treated Robin and myself to lunch on the Wednesday, and who fitted together another piece of a coincidental story for me. So, in the unreality of time spent waiting for trains and the spell of Mythago Wood was more than ready for the sky darkening to deep thunderclouds at home.
Still waiting to hear if Terry Pratchett likes the picture, and tomorrow have to go back to the drawing board.
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15th June. The day was full of the soft sound of heavy rain falling. Settled eventually to paint and later went to the college in Haverfordwest to see Sarah Brown's end of year show. Her work was beautiful and clever, with a mixture of photography and sculpture and drawing. Loved the sculpture in particular. The show was opened by Emily Gravett who illustrated and wrote Wolves, Meercat Mail and Orange Pear Apple Bear. It seems that she used to live across the fields from here. Her work is beautiful, her drawing sublime.
Driving home the sky was full of castle-high clouds and the rain has passed away leaving everything fresh and green and the air clean as crystal.
18th June. Walking. Flowers. Hot, but sky like a bruise.
Painting, drawing, thinking, writing, reading Mythago Wood with its magic. Moving horses, heavy feathered feet and smelling of summer grass.
And fish.
And more painting, listening to the beautiful Mr Christy Moore.
20th June. In the hallway in the nighttime a purring pool of ginger cats dream, curled and flowing around each other. All is quiet.
23rd June. A walk. Ponies on the hillside. Long grass flowers flowing in the wind. Golden, green and green gold. Buzzards circle and so do muddled thoughts. Time flowing through my fingers. Story flits around like a butterfly too quick to catch and hold and mundane things make too much noise to find any peace of mind.
25th June. Fox in a field of golden dusk.
26th June. Found a wonderful book called Wild by Jay Griffiths or rather the book found me, one of those magical moments. Stunning writing, passion and poetry. Walked with my beautiful cat and clambered to photograph a rock made soft and pink by a dense covering of english stonecrop.
28th June. Walking this morning in sunshine and wind, round Treginnis. Air full of birds, a heron, white gannet close to the cliffs, family of chough with pale beaked juveniles, ravens tumbling and turning, wheatear and skylark and a kestrel mobbing a buzzard like David and Goliath. A pied oystercatcher chased away a black backed gull and returned screaming defiance to a rocky harbour where its chick waited. Echoes of an oyster catchers rage bounced from the cliffs long after the raider had gone.
Painted all the rest of the day as the clouds built up to a weight and again threw water down making the day more like winter. Cold. Too cold for June. In between painting wandered around other people's work and their studios at a blog for nosy people who like art. Click here to have a look. Particularly loved the work of Sarah Utter with its gloriously vibrant colours.
And in random wanderings on the web I found a wonderful project, paper quilts made by artists from all around the world.
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29th June. Listening to the wind making music in the long, greengold grass.
......next.
