SEACHANGE

Its been a while since i posted here,  & i find more options,  like writing in these colours ..  in fact I like this one even better.   Especially as I want to share a short sequence of photos I took with my mobile down on the beach yesterday,  these blues feel right.  
October brought rich changes & deep ceremony  to us here.  Blessing the shamanic work we do,  & the place,  the ripples continue to spread.  
 Then a change of gear - happy time with family in Oxford including outstanding music at the Oxford Lieder festival.  A recital by Thomas Allen being one of the musical highlights of my life - quite exceptional - deep, moving, exilerating, funny, being in the presence of a master .
And now November..  after some of those fluey achy days I'm finding my way back to the level of excercise I enjoy,  no steep walks yet,  but that nourishing from pottering at the edge of the sea.
How life changes us,  yet trusting my Spirit Helpers reconnects me  again & again .  May we each  find our right way to allow our hearts to keep opening to receive & give light,  again & again. 

down among the wild flowers

This painting is another in my Land series which I have been posting up here from time to time.

I started it early in the summer 2010, but only finished it earlier this year. It came from spending many visits sitting in amongst the bluebells & greater stitchworts that grow in a bank created by the remains of an iron age hill fort on this land. The weather was kind at that stage of 2010, and I sat out there many times drawing in a little sketchbook - not directly on the canvas that time. The sketchbook then inspired the little drawings drawn onto the flower shapes in the painting. During my series of visits out there the flowers began going over, becoming seed heads, & the next plants in nature's cycle were thrusting up past them - grasses, sorrells & the bracken which eventually dominates that area for the rest of the summer.

I wanted to convey the feeling of the layers of teeming life & colour there being drawn up from the earth by the sun. At that point it was a place to go & rest & recharge my batteries, which I was very grateful for. Looking at it now brings back the sense of that place.

TAKE CARE OF THE LITTLE ONES..

I took these photos on my mobile on a recent holiday with my partner on the beautiful Lleyn peninsular in North Wales. We were sitting at the back of the beach on our 1st afternoon there, & looking around me I saw so many little feathers, & I felt a gut need to do something in response..

So I found myself gathering some & standing them in the sand, totally engrossed in following my intuition..

As this little place took shape, I kept hearing in my head " TAKE CARE OF THE LITTLE ONES " .

As I finished it, putting the seaweed round the edge to mark the boundary of this little place, I understood that it was a little shrine. A little marker , tucked up at the back of the beach, just below high tide mark ; a message for me, a message for anyone who might explore there too in the next hours while the sea crept its way back up the long sands. The tide was big that day, there was plenty of time.

And so I share it with you - TAKE CARE OF THE LITTLE ONES - whoever they are around you today. Little people, little plants, little trees, little crawling, walking, climbing, flying ones, small or young or old ones, take that extra moment to take care. Let them touch your heart & teach you, as these little feathers did me.

And I thank all the Spirits who love us, who are just waiting to take care of us, each time we ask for their help.

Sunset Heart

I didn't realise till I was looking back through my computer the other day that what I thought was a failed attempt at recording sunset colours was actually a picture of a heart drawn by the trees here !

Thank you Tree People, what more can I say ?!

Views of my Exhibition

So here is the exhibition the last 4 posts have been about - & tomorrow I will go in to put up the 1st red dot :-).

The same as last year - I asked the purchaser to donate the money to a place / organisation local to her that looks after the land, & so the energy goes full circle, & I trust the land & the Spirits will inspire me with many more paintings .

Land 5 - " The Wren Knows "

This post & the previous 3 show pictures in my current exhibition which have not bee posted up here before. This is the most recent from my "Land " series. The inspiration this time being drawing the shapes of a clump of dried grass last winter. Whilst I was observing it, a Wren hopped by, moving from bush to undergrowth to bush through the garden , as they do. The fact that it hopped over this very place really helped me focus on it. So thanks to Wren, who brought me inspiration, knowing far more about this grass than I.

More Hearts Opening ...

More from my exhibition - These three little paintings are further developments from a larger one I posted up here at the end of last year. In this series I am working further with the theme of the heart - one's heart .. my heart .. your heart.. breaking, but in doing so breaking up in order to grow. So the scattering pieces of the heart as it has been drift, or are blown, apart, revealing a whole new world of possibilities, not just of pain, but of new energies , of hope, of love.

There will be more, I'm not through with this theme, I want to push it a lot further ... so lets wait & see..

Underneath the Ash Tree

This painting is in my current exhibition, and is the 4th in my Land series. These are the ones that start with going outdoors & drawing straight onto the canvas the shapes that I observe in a particular place here, where I live. This was, as the title says, under an Ash tree. The wind was blowing a bit, so everything was dancing about, particularly the ends of the branches which hung down over my head. There were reflections in the water close by , & all sorts of things were burgeoning on the ground - ferns, mushrooms, different leaves - and then there were other shapes above, like ivy fruit.. it was really fun to look & draw.

Afterwards the painting grew slowly indoors, in stages, as I mixed different colours to find the ones that make each other sing. This was always a happy painting.

As I look at it now, it really brings back that place to me, and the light atmosphere of that windy place, so I hope that the painting may be a blessing, from the place to you.

New Exhibition includes these Trees

Its a long time since I posted anything here.. biggest news for me today is that I hung an exhibition of my work yesterday in our local town Newcastle Emlyn, in the excellent Riverside Cafe . I have 13 pieces of work up there, including these 3 monoprints which are from a larger set. They are printed with oil paint & they are a way of working fast - intuitively, bypassing the worrying mind. I then hand-coloured some with acrylic paints & inks, just wee little bits of colour, like the middle one of these 3.

I have put several paintings up there too - some have already featured on this blog, some are soon to do so.

However simple the idea seemed of taking my work over there, the practicalities are always more complicated & time-consuming . All those little glitches like the printer ink running out, or forgetting to put the wire on the back of a canvas to hang it.. well its done now, so if you are a local reader, please pop along & have an excellent veggie snack while you are at it.

Its such an unknown quantity seeing my work in a new place & in a new combination. Actually its a joy when they look good. And its all new work since last summer when lots of my work went out to new homes, so I can sit back & see what I have done.

My barn walls here look a bit empty & bereft now - but what a gift - room for new work, & I have a lot more started & in my head.

So - my next posts will be any paintings in this show that I havent already put up here.