Nerves

Its almost time to submit my final major project but I’ve become very nervous about it. Such a lot rides on how I do. I’m already suffering from insomnia but this is just making it worse. I’m wondering why I can’t sleep, but I guess it’s thoughts like “have I got enough images?” “what if I forget to include?” “how do I create?” Don’t get me wrong, I have learnt a lot over the course of the last two years. I am attempting things I would never have done before. And what am I going to get out of it, apart from those new skills? Would anyone employ me as a free-lance illustrator/ author/ crafts person? Lot’s of questions. I think my style is my USP. I tend to do my own thing. I am probably too analogue. But I have a passion and I want what I am doing to be interesting. Do I have to be subsumed into a generic style? I hope not!

Trentham Gardens

One of the metal sculptures / plant supports in a planter at Trentham Gardens retail Village. I like the art nouveau or is it art deco feel to these (I can never remember). They are already pretty but come high summer they will be packed with bright and cheerful flowers. Vines climbing up the sculptural sections of metal.

Batty cat!

I wonder what a cat with wings would be like? Would they flap like a magpie or a bat? Would they chase birds in the sky, like Sparrowhawks? I can imagine them flying up to the tree tops. Nesting in the very top branches, feathering their nests? I’d be worried for the health of small mammals too, the bat cat would dive from great heights instead of simply pouncing from a short distance away. Beware genetic manipulation!

Earth moves…

We think the Earth goes round the Sun and the Moon goes round the Earth. So at the end of a year the Earth is in the same place as a year ago. Right? Wrong! The Galaxy is spinning and the Sun moves with it through space. The Earth orbits the Sun but because the Sun is moving the Earth spirals along around it, and the Moon curves and spirals round Earth. So hard to try and draw! If we could time travel we would have to move through time and space to get back onto the Earth. But if you take into account the speed we are travelling and the distance we will have travelled around the Galaxy, I imagine it would take a great deal of energy to do it!

Magnolia sketch

I sat and drew one of the magnolias while we were there at Bishton Hall. It was just a black and white sketch so I coloured it in when I got home. The curved edges are because I can’t get my sketchbook page to lie flat. I don’t think I’ve got the colours right, but I have only got a limited range of colours in the set of felt pens I’m using.

Tree at Bishton

Never seen a tree trunk like this before. It’s like a hand reaching down grasping something protruding from the earth. The limbs explode above waiting to burst into leaf. I could see catkins but could not identify this gnarly tree. Bishton Hall near Rugeley, Staffordshire was holding a craft fair. Very interesting and enjoyable.

Spring flowers

It’s almost the end of tulips and daffodils season. Soon it will be bluebells and other spring flowers… Leaves are opening on the trees. Buds swelling with the water that is falling from the April showers. We decided to go out for the day and headed south for a few miles. You could see more leaves on trees the further south we went. I remember hearing on a TV programme once that you could see the spring slowly creeping up the country as the days lengthened and the daffodils flowered. It might have said it takes two weeks to go from the far south to the far north? Not absolutely certain though.