“Shhh!” I say.
“I didn’t say anything,” replies Big Dreamer innocently.
“You’re breathing really loudly,” I growl.
Deadlines loom!
Hannah’s Instagram
Hannah’s Current Reading
Data from Goodreads
Work in progress
Posted in Family and friends, Illustration
Tagged deadline, illustration
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Mental images
I’ve returned home from our festive travels with so many beautiful mental images. There was the Narnian lamppost in the churchyard on Christmas Eve, whose frosty halo lit my mum and I through the starlight night to Midnight Mass, the tips of our noses the only skin visible between our copious woolen layers. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Mr Tumnus had stepped out between the yew trees, hymnbook tucked under his arm, and had accompanied us inside.
There was a secret rope swing, hidden enticingly at the end of a natural tunnel of holly trees, in the middle of a beech wood. We swung out high over a damp gully, feeling the husky brush of wintery air against our flushed cheeks.
There was the view from the air as we took off from Exeter airport, the south coast of England glowing in wintery sunshine and dissolving in a dazzling haze in the far distance. As we flew north, thick fog clung to river valleys, parting respectfully for snow-laden peaks that glinted like mirages in the low sun.
A slightly less poetic image was of my mum exasperated with the present tense narrated style of the Call the Midwife Christmas special, voicing loudly how they would always mess with her favourite programmes. You didn’t notice the same issue? Well no, you wouldn’t have, unless you too had the audio description feature on.
So, I’m starting 2015 resolved to get back to the seasonality and simplicity those mental images invoke. Life with a new baby is all about essentials, day and night blend seamlessly together in one long trail of immediacy. It’s the way it is, and as much as nature has its seasons, so do we human beings. All the same, I’d like it if 2015 could be a bit less bleary-eyed.
Posted in Countryside, Family and friends, Illustration
Tagged aeroplane, beech, Call the Midwife, christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas special, Exeter airport, fog, holly, lamppost, Midnight Mass, mr tumnus, narnia, new baby, new year's resolutions, rope swing
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Happy New Year
Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to 2015!
Happy Christmas
Well there we go, Christmas parties have been attended, nativity plays have been applauded, carols have been sung, and the holidays are finally here. Time to put our feet up with a glass of mulled wine. This year we are flying south to be with my parents in Devon. I’m slightly nervous about our presents taking us over the weight-limit. We’ll just have to stuff them in our pockets if it comes to it. Big Dreamer has already offered to wear all his clothes but I’m not sure he’d be able to bend to sit in his seat if he did that. Fingers-crossed all will be well!
Once again, I can’t thank you enough for your support in all I have been up to illustration-wise over the last year. Thank you for reading my blog and following what we get up to. May your Christmas be full of comfort and cheer. Merry Christmas everyone!
Posted in Illustration
Tagged carols, holidays, illustration, merry christmas, nativity
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Inheriting
In a kind of lovely postscript to my last post, I received a brilliant email. I’ll quote a little bit of it:
“…just a quick note to say we moved into your old house a month ago and adore your garden and the hard work you put into it. I will attempt to keep it to the same high standards you set with it…”
Is that possibly the nicest thing in the world? They didn’t have to email and they don’t have to care…but they did and they do! It’s a real encouragement to carry on with the garden here, however briefly we’ll be staying. And maybe, just maybe, someone, somewhere is working hard on a garden that we’ll get to inherit.
Posted in Countryside, Growing things, Wildlife
Tagged caring, countryside, email, farm, garden, gardening, plants, vegetables
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Five doors down
We’re struggling for birdlife in our garden. I’d started off with great hope. We had a number of visitors over the summer. Granted they were of the townie variety but we’re not fussy. Garden birds are so companionable and we used to love watching them from the windows on the farm. You really feel you belong when a rowdy robin counts you as territory. Over the autumn months all we’ve seen here is a fiercesome magpie. He is foiled by our seed feeders, which are made for much smaller birds, but the fat balls he knocks to the ground and wolfs down in one sitting. I’ve stopped putting bread crumbs out on the patio as they only got eaten by slugs. You would think the slug banquet might have attracted something avian but even the magpie wasn’t interested. Where were all the birds?
Then, coming home from dropping Little Owl off at school one morning I heard the most raucous kerfuffle coming from the hedge outside of the house five doors down from us. I couldn’t see what was making the noise but I knew it was birds. After a little bit of reading I decided they were probably House Sparrows. Wonderful news! So, it’s not the case that there aren’t any birds round here. The hedge made me realise what the problem is, there’s just no cover for them. Our garden, and all the garden’s round us are bare patches of mossy grass surrounded by houses and bare fences. In spite of all our summer plantings, everything will take a number of years to mature to the point where it will provide shelter for nervous birds. The Clematis Montana, just next to the bird feeders has taken advantage of the mild autumn and vigorously claimed one fence panel, but everything else is less than a foot or so off the ground. Still, in five years time, hopefully someone else will be enjoying a few feathered friends plucking berries from our carefully selected wildlife-friendly gardening. In the mean time we’ll keep tipping our caps to our sparrow neighbours in the hedge five doors down.
Posted in Countryside, Wildlife
Tagged bird feeders, clematis montana, fat balls, garden birds, gardening, hedge sparrows, illustration, magpie, school run, wildlife
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Paperholm
Paperholm is a great project I wanted to bring to your attention. It’s by Edinburgh-based Charles Young, who I know through my super talented illustrator friend Anine Bosenberg. Charles’ background is architecture, which is where he discovered his love for paper-modelling. Since August he has been making one of these miniature buildings a day, and now has a small city of them, called Paperholm. Many of the buildings even have moving components. I think the thing that I find so mesmerising about them is the combination of precision with the fantastical. I’m really looking forward to seeing how it develops. You can see more of Paperholm by visiting Charles’ site here.
Posted in Family and friends
Tagged anine bosenberg, architecture, buildings, Charles Young, paper, paper-modelling
2 Comments
Mouseless
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Big Dreamer stepped out on to the pavement this morning and went sprawling. “Watch out for the ice!” he shouted back through the letterbox and slid off to catch his train. Fortunately Finch, Little Owl and I form quite a stable convoy for the school run. As long as Little Owl holds onto the pram we have eight feet on the ground (if you include wheels), but coming home was not so easy. Little Owl’s school is at the top of a hill and the weight of the pram on the descent gradually increased our pace until I had lost all semblance of control. The only option was to go with it, attempting to retain some steering capabilities by creating a slalom-like motion with my feet. The difficulty was avoiding the other slaloming parents!
The Christmas event calendar went into overdrive at the weekend and I loved it! We braved icy sleet to sing carols with a brass band and watch the Christmas lights being turned on in the town square. You can’t beat a brass band for getting you into the Christmas spirit. Little Owl posted off her Christmas list to Father Christmas. Number one on the list was a pair of roller skates. Big Dreamer and I looked at each other aghast; she hasn’t once mentioned wanting roller skates the whole year! Let’s hope there really is a Father Christmas because as far as I know, she won’t be getting roller skates. Then on Sunday, Little Owl performed in a pantomime at our local community theatre. For ages she has been telling us she was going to be a mouse (the pantomime being Cinderella). No wonder she looked mystified at our costume-related questions about her ears and her nose; when she waltzed on to the stage she wasn’t a mouse at all, but a dancing lady in pink and blue satin! I think the mouse must have come from the same place the roller skates did. I’ve imagined her here as a mouse all the same. Maybe I should have drawn her in roller skates too!
Posted in Family and friends, Illustration
Tagged black ice, brass band, carols, christmas, Christmas lights, Christmas list, Christmas tree, Cinderella, community theatre, illustration, Little Owl, mouse, pantomime, pram, school run, slalom, sleet
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Disappointment
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Yesterday morning the day dawned white and crisp, not snow just yet, but a thick hoare frost. The pavements and roof tops glistened in the pink light of the rising sun. Little Owl let out a whoop of glee as she slid down the path to the car. Finch’s legs and arms wriggled wildly on his perch in my arms, safely ensconced in his thick snowsuit, his bright eyes tracking Little Owl. Just you wait, he seems to be saying, just you wait! He’s desperate to crawl but can only do backwards, the objects he is trying to reach cruelly retreating into the distance.
Little Owl’s busy calendar of Christmas events kicked off this week with a trip to her school Christmas Fair. It was there that Little Owl learned a sad truth about candy floss. If you squeeze your bag of candy floss tightly to you as you wander round the crowded stalls, said candy floss experiences significant shrinkage. Tears were averted by the purchase of a jolly reindeer pencil. If only all life’s disappointments were so easily compensated for.
Here is one set of the documentary illustrations I did for the Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution (SCCR) Youth Conference a few weeks ago.
Posted in Family and friends, Illustration
Tagged candy floss, christmas, crawling, December, documentary illustration, fair, hoare frost, Little Owl, pencil, reindeer, SCCR, school, Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution, sliding, Youth Event
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“Everything is its own reward”
A few years ago my lovely brother-in-law gave me this book. It’s called Everything Is Its Own Reward by artist, Paul Madonna. Everything Is Its Own Reward is a volume of work Madonna originally produced as a weekly strip (a comic strip without the comic) for the San Francisco Chronicle. In it he depicts street scenes from his hometown of San Francisco, accompanied by snippets of fictional conversations. I love to dip into it and often find it both soothing and inspiring.
One aspect of the book that has come to have increasing significance for me is Madonna’s comments on the meaning of the creative act as an artist. I’ve put up a quote here from Madonna’s notes that has had a profound impact on me. I know exactly what he means about that mountain of dirt and I think it is an especially daunting mountain when you are still in the journeyman years of your career. For anyone else out there, thoughtful enough to live in the shadow of the dirt mountain, I hope you find Madonna’s words encouraging too.
Posted in Illustration
Tagged art, artist, cityscapes, comic strips, comics, creativity, drawing, Everything is its own reward, illustration, journeyman years, Paul Madonna, San Francisco, San Francisco Chronicle
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