In and out of the garden.

It has been a busy time here, family visits from afar being the main focus of our bank holiday weekend, so not much time for work or updates. We have had some sunny days and a little rain and everything in the garden is growing at an alarming pace, weeds included. Some plants seem happy to be left to their own devices and are therefore more than welcome, one such resident is what I call “London Pride”, a small, rather old-fashioned little plant with rosettes of glossy leaves which has established itself around the base of an old chimney pot in my tiny front garden. The lovely thing about it, apart from its very pretty little flowers, is the fact that it is very hardy and makes good ground cover. The clusters can be easily separated and planted in new areas or given way to gardening friends. (I think that is how I came by mine!)

Now, if you will forgive me I will get back to tidying away the toys, I am so glad I hung onto this box of treasures, which have provided many happy and constructive hours of fun for my children and now are being enjoyed by the next generation. "Billy and his Barrels" are still more or less intact but are missing the smallest barrel containing Billy, the culprit is pictured below.

Do you like butter?

I have spent the morning walking my dog and taking lots of photographs of buttercups in the meadow so I will have lots of reference material at the ready when the occasion demands. I hope to incorporate some of these yellow beauties in my ongoing illustration project.

There is something very innocent and child like about this flower. When you were a child did you ever hold a buttercup flower under your chin? If the petals reflected yellow onto your chin that meant that you liked butter. I never met anyone who answered no, did you?

I tried very hard to photograph some bumblebees, to no avail but they did seem to be quite a few around. Having said that I am never too sure what is a bumblebee and what is a solitary bee, according to the Bumblee Conservation Trust “there are 250 species of bee in the UK. This is made up of only one species of honey bee, 25 species of bumblebee and 225 solitary bees species which rarely get a mention.” The trust are looking for volunteers at the moment to record bees and to give talks etc. If you want to learn more you can follow this link.

Everyone knows that buttercups are yellow so imagine my surprise when I saw a red colourway of my buttercup design! It seems that it made more sense economically to switch the screens around from yellow to red rather than print a similar poppy design in the “Buttercup Farm” series by Makower.

One for sorrow, two for joy.

Work has started on my new book project I spoke about earlier, or perhaps I should say our new book project. It is in fact going to be a family project and something very new and experimental for all of us. I had a vague idea I wanted to write about and my husband Tony (an English teacher) helped me to shape the idea into a story. Gradually he added bits, new ideas, this interchange of ideas went back and forth, back and forth until it was difficult to remember how we arrived at the final version!

We submitted the completed text (without illustration) to a couple of publishers who very politely said “no thanks”. The text then languished in a drawer for months until our son James took it out and made it into an audio book as part of his final years studies in music technology. The addition of music and sound effects really brought the story to life and we were all very pleased with the result.

Fast forward another twelve months and we are on the threshold of our new venture, the work will be published as a multi-media children’s book application for the Apple iPod, iPhone, iPad, and other audio platforms. It will have fourteen illustrations, a scrolling text, music and sound effects and narration which can be overwritten by another voice, for example a parent or child can choose to record themselves reading the story. It is going to be available in English and German. The book also has a title “The bird with the rainbow tail”

The very sad magpie drawing is work in progress; all the illustrations start as pen and ink drawings in black and white with colour added digitally so it will be a mixture of old and new technologies. I hope the world will always be full of traditional children’s books, they played an important role in my life, my children’s life and now my grandchild’s life but we see this as an addition, the sort of thing that you can take on a journey without then need to carry heavy books around. I hope to explain more later; in the meantime I will leave you with one very sad magpie in the making.

Bluebells and Barthomley

It is so hard to stay indoors when the bluebells are in bloom. For a brief spell, before the leaf canopy gets too dense, sunlight dances on the woodland floor and the bluebells take center stage.



This little woodland is only a mile or so away from our home but as yet, remains an area of great tranquility and natural beauty, despite being so close to the town. As you can see we took Ted for a walk over the May Bank Holiday, as usual he chose his walking stick with great care and attention. (Click for a closer look.)

The weather was bright but cold and before too long the rain started in earnest, there was only one thing for it, we headed for the pub where a roaring fire awaited us. You can see more of this old inn in Barthomley which dates back to 1614 here. It is the sort of pub where dogs are welcome but we decided to take Ted home first as he had got rather wet in the rain, he did not seem to mind too much as he snuggled into his new blanket.



The water colour illustration above is taken from “A Book of Days” which sadly is now out of print.

daffydowndillies

I have been reading an old gardening book which refers to daffodils as daffydowndillies, isn't that a lovely name?
Our daffodils have more or less gone past their best; they have been so much later this year than last thanks to our very prolonged winter. We have a few in flower at the moment but I don’t think they will last much into next week. The painting here will be an Easter card to be published next year in the UK, actually I finished it last year and had the luxury of painting it from life which is always preferable to working out of season.

The weather has been truly wonderful here and we have been taking photographs of wild flowers in order to have lots of reference material on which to draw. Our usual walking place is now scattered with cowslips, primroses and wood anemones. Baby rabbits have been keeping Ted on his toes, fortunately he is hopeless at catching them, in fact I think he enjoys hunting for sticks! We have noticed a few rabbits with what looks like Myxomatosis, something I thought had died out years ago, it is quite heartbreaking to see them limping about by the wayside.





I have started to work on a new book project, which is a bit daunting; I hope to share more news of this soon, and in the meantime I hope to catch up with reading your blogs.

Happy Saint George's Day!

"This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England".
William Shakespeare.

Although the tradition of wearing a red rose on St George's Day seems to have been forgotten I thought that I would post this image today. Over the past few years there seems to be a movement towards making today a National Holiday, maybe sometime we will be able to enjoy this day in much the same way as the Irish celebrate St Patrick's Day, which I am more than happy to do being married to an Irish man :- )

One Old Oxford Ox

Following on from my last post I promised to tell you about Oxford. We stayed overnight in St Stephen’s Hall, one of the many student halls available to the general public for bed and breakfast. Previously we have stayed at Keble College but this was out of action due to renovation; no matter, St Stephen’s did not disappoint and as an added bonus it had car parking, a rarity in central Oxford. I loved staying in this tranquil, cloistered building which was surprisingly warm and friendly with its hidden herb gardens and quiet corners (see top two images, click to enlarge).

It was only a short stroll down the Cowley road into the town centre where we visited the Ashmoleon, The Natural History Museum with its famous dodo and the most amazingly quirky Pitt Rivers Museum. Oxford looked beautiful basking in spring sunshine, which made its honey coloured stone glow. I love to peep into secret gardens and soak in the ambience of this famous city with its bicycles and lovely old pubs and bookshops.



On our way home we returned to reality and caught the Friday afternoon traffic on the motorway which took us to the NEC where “Books Illustrated” were exhibiting original children’s book illustration including for the first time the amazing Nicola Bayley whose work I have admired for many years now. Included in the exhibition was a small selection of work from my book “White is the moon” which you can just about make out in the photograph. The exhibition will tour various venues around the country, the dates and places are available from the website here.



Nicola kindly gave me her permission to show you some of her work which you can see in more detail here on her website. I have a collection of her books on my shelf starting with “One Old Oxford Ox” one of the many books she illustrated for Jonathan Cape. She is perhaps best known for her amazingly detailed, exquisite, miniature paintings of cats, possibly the best known being “The Mousehole Cat.” Perhaps my all time favourite and desert island book is “All for the Newborn Baby” by Walker Books which is what I can only describe a work of pure genius with jeweled medieval inspired decorations; one for keeping and handling with white cotton gloves!