Finch

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Hannah

Illustration of a little girl's shoes by Hannah Foley. All rights reserved (www.owlingabout.co.uk)We have a lovely little baby boy! Just like Little Owl he’s got a pseudonym for blogging so, without further ado, may I introduce Finch to you all.

I’ve gone for Finch because he’s got lovely dark dancing eyes like a finch. It’s also because the collective term for goldfinches is a charm, and in sickening new parent fashion we think he’s rather charming.

As the days go past we’re slowly getting into the swing of things, enough to actually leave the house. One outing this week didn’t go so well when we made the rookie-parenting mistake of not putting any nappies in the change bag. Finch had to endure the rest of the trip trussed up in a muslin and a plastic nappy sack until we could find a shop to purchase supplies. Poor boy – it doesn’t bode well does it?!

The shoes I’ve drawn here are from a personal project I’ve was doing to keep myself drawing while waiting for Finch. I have still got most of Little Owl’s shoes from the very first properly measured shoe she wore, so I have been drawing them and will eventually put them together to create one big image to put on her wall. It seemed like a nice thing to do to mark her progress up to the age of 5 and the start of school.

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New arrival

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Hannah

Baby boy Foley has finally arrived! All went well. 8lbs 110z – ouch! We’re both at home and slowly getting into the swing of things. More news to follow soon…

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Connected at last

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Hannah

Illustration of a little girl's shoes by Hannah Foley. All rights reserved (www.owlingabout.co.uk)Finally we have Internet at the new house and I can blog again properly. I do remember the days before the Internet but find it hard to remember how we managed. I certainly wouldn’t have imagined myself writing a blog, even if I had known what one was! Anyway, I’m very glad to be back.

Moving house went smoothly except for Big Dreamer having quite a serious argument with a loft hatch. A prolonged trip to A & E ensued and nine stitches later he looked much more like his old self. I think the most painful aspect of the whole business might have been Little Owl’s ministrations from her toy doctor’s bag afterwards.

On the last day in the old house I took a turn around the empty rooms and the budding garden. The bank by the gate was full of primroses and grape hyacinths, the hyacinths only having come out that week. I spied the odd dock starting to poke up through the ground and resigned myself to the fact that we won’t be there to wage weed war anymore. I hope we’ve done enough that some semblance of a garden survives. Perhaps the next tenants will like gardening too. Someone suggested digging up a lot of the plants and taking them with us but I couldn’t do that. Whichever way I look at it I feel we’ve left a gift behind us even if it’s only one for the sun and the sky to enjoy.

As we were getting in the car a big old bumblebee dozily buzzed through the grape hyacinths and we waved the house goodbye. In contrast the new house felt cold and unfamiliar. The garden felt unloved and neglected.  But as I turned the key in the patio door lock a big old bumblebee dozily buzzed past. He might have just come from the hyacinths and I thought, well maybe there’s more continuity here than I realise.

And in case any of you were wondering, we’re still waiting for this baby who is now significantly overdue!

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Off-line

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Hannah

Still no internet connection (boo!) but here’s an article about my work just published online by a very nice lady called Daphne Leprince-Ringuet. Take a look: www.gola.co.uk/borninbritain/hannah-foley-writer-and-illustrator

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Happy Easter

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Hannah

Illustration of a pot of daffodils by Hannah Foley. All rights reserved (www.owlingabout.co.uk).We’re all moved in to our new house but don’t have internet connected yet so in the meantime here’s a quick message from my phone. Happy Easter one and all!

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Moving house

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Hannah

Illustration of a removal van by Hannah Foley. All rights reserved (www.owlingabout.co.uk).We’re currently moving house….I’ll be back here as soon as we have internet!

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On pregnancy

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Hannah

Three Little Rabbits by Hannah Foley. All rights reserved (www.owlingabout.co.uk).With my due date looming ever closer I have been thinking about how to describe what it is like to be pregnant. On the outside I look round and smooth (and enormous!), but on the inside I don’t feel the same at all. Being pregnant is nothing like having a football up your jumper, more like a set of bagpipes. I roll over in bed and can’t get comfortable because it definitely feels like there’s an foot stuffed under my ribcage. I roll onto my other side. Now it feels like there’s a bottom pushing up against my stomach and my tea feels dangerously close to the surface. On the outside I look like one of those cheerful roly poly toys that always rights itself but inside it’s like carrying a jumbling bag of bones. And then as soon as I’ve got comfortable I need a wee!

Here are some bunnies I’ve been working on recently and here is a link to a beautifully written blog post by Jessica Ruston about being creative when you have a new baby.

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NOT nesting

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Hannah

Little Owl's House made by Hannah Foley.I hate the word nesting. I don’t mind it being applied to birds in spring because they are actually building nests but when it’s applied to pregnant women it makes me irate. It’s mostly because I don’t want it to be applied to me. The word nesting implies that I have no insight into the hormonal influence of pregnancy on my psychology and am therefore, with great fondness, out of control. Nesting is at the benign end of the same spectrum as phrases like “hysteria” and “phantom pregnancy”. It negates the impact of a huge rite of passage on a woman by dismissing sensible practical preparations she may take as biologically programmed. Most women know that the first few weeks of a baby’s life are pretty hard on the parents so seizing the opportunity of finishing work to cook meals for the freezer and do some DIY on a home you’re going to be seeing the inside of for quite a while is surely just common sense.

Fortunately there’s no risk of the term being applied to me at the moment as all I want to do is sit down and stare blindly into space. However, in an ironic twist, thinking about how annoying I find it did propel me into some frenzied action that might be interpreted as nesting. In fact the real motivation was guilt…

Little Owl has been super throughout this pregnancy. I can’t imagine what she thinks of it all and I hope she can remember that her mum has not always been an enormous swollen vomiting grumpy monster. She has been sweet and patient, terms not often applied to a just turned five year old. So, I decided to make her a house…and here it is. Little Owl loves imaginary play. She is always concocting some incredible fantasy dish in her toy kitchen or packing her bags for magical lands dressed in wellies and a fairy outfit. We have a clothing rail that I used to use at fairs and it seemed perfect to construct the house on. Little Owl helped me cut out the fabric and handed me the pins. She has declared it “splendid” (Little Miss Splendid is her favourite in case you were wondering where she got that from). So, I’m NOT nesting but instead this is a thank you to my beautiful thoughtful daughter. And I hope she can cope with a variation on the monster theme for a few months more when enormous, swollen and vomiting are taken over by tired, leaky and sore!

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SCCR Conference

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Hannah

SCCR conference folder designed and illustrated by Hannah Foley. All rights reserved (www.owlingabout.co.uk)We’ve listened enviously to reports of glorious weather down south. Here we haven’t been able to see the bottom of our garden for the last six days. The whole valley is shrouded in a low mist that descends even more thickly at night. A delivery driver to the farm told me it’s the same all the way to Hawick. Little Owl calls this sort of weather “mystery weather” and she’s right. It can’t be much fun trying to lamb up on the hills in it.

Yesterday I attended the launch conference of the Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution (SCCR). Many of you will know that I have been volunteering with them this year as an illustrator. The conference was peppered with items I’d designed or had illustrated for. The photo here shows the conference folder I designed. I was so proud! I feel very privileged to have been involved in the work of the Centre and the conference brought this home to me again. One of the keynote speakers was Karyn McCluskey. You can read about her work with Glasgow gangs and the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit here. Her speech was incredibly moving. I met so many interesting people throughout the day from those teaching primary school children mediation skills to use with their peers in the playground through to those working with teenage mums. There is so much good work quietly going on and it’s wonderful to see it making the national agenda.

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Happy Mother’s Day

Posted on March 30, 2014 by Hannah

Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and illustrations by Rebecca CobbHave you seen this picture book? It’s called Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson (of Gruffalo fame). I’m pretty sure Rebecca Cobb won an award for the illustrations but can’t think where I read that now (pregnancy brain!). Little Owl loves it. She knows whole sections off by heart. It cleverly intertwines themes of loss and growing up with the everyday simplicity of a child’s experience. It’s a similar story to The Gift by Carol Ann Duffy (illustrations by Rob Ryan) but somehow more profound because of it’s lightness; in the way that children’s books often can be.

It’s funny that it feels a bit strange to mention Julia Donaldson and Carol Ann Duffy in the same sentence. The lack of appreciation of children’s books as ‘serious’ literature, worthy of the same attention given to novels or poetry for adults, is something I’ve read a few children’s authors resignedly complain about. Mem Fox describes the writing of a children’s book as “the perfect placement of syllables.” Julia Donaldson’s perfect placement of syllables and her talent for verse in the Paper Dolls makes the story all the more poignant. It’s a great one for Mother’s Day.

paper_dollsHere are Little Owl’s paper dolls. She’s been carrying them everywhere this week. She gave me the Mother’s Day present she made at nursery on Thursday. It was a lovely little flower-shaped clock she’s painted herself. After allowing me to open it she then decided it was too good to give away and has kept it for herself!

PS On the 11th November Pan Macmillan organised a world record breaking attempt for the longest chain of paper dolls in aid of Save the Children and to celebrate the Paper Dolls picture book. They did it with 45, 282 dolls – pretty impressive eh?

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