Hirsel 1

“The Moon is made of groundsel

The Sun is made of grass

And in the cornflower summer sky

There is a looking glass

Back and back and back and back

The further and further on

Look in the weed-dark herring pond

For the place where you come from”

For some reason, when copying out this rhyme from Old Merlaine, I kept writing the last line as “for the place where you belong”. Which has quite a different resonance. I just used to write off the top of my head, so have no idea why the sun might be made of grass, though reflected in water it might appear this. But perhaps it is just nonsense. However, the image above, a photograph taken whilst walking in the Hirsel and looking down into the small river that runs through it, the Leet, made me think of this long-ago, badly remembered rhyme. I rarely reread my own work. It is like something written by another person whom I know to be myself, as I can remember that person, but someone whose mind now works in a different way.

Daughters of Thyme

Much to my pleasure, I was asked by a friend, Jane Keenan to produce a cover for this book written by herself and two other poets. They met whilst on an Open University Course, and made this lovely book of poems, with subjects that branch out from the personal to ramifications in the wider world. For anyone wanting to see more about the book, the Daughters of Time site is at https://dotipress.com.

I hand-painted the lettering, as until I do Musical Bears, which will probably be later in the year, I am too mean to get the Adobe programme for laying lettering over text, to present to printers. However, I think with this book the hand-painted lettering does fit the feeling of the book, so I may do the same thing with the cover for Musical Bears. The imagery on the lilac strip is actually taken from a sprig of thyme taken from a pot just outside the Tardis, my octagonal, dark blue studio at the end of the garden.

Liddesdale Flowers: Orchid 1

I’m just posting the image of a flower from a place that is dear to my heart. Today I needed to walk to clear my head, then I did not listen to the news, but picked up a book that was in a pile on the edge of the table, one of those wide-ranging and exemplary anthologies produced by Bloodaxe Books, a publisher based in Newcastle upon Tyne. I read poems by Denise Levertov, whilst waiting for the oven to heat up. There comes a time when walking in the woods (thank you, Scotland, for the right to roam, it means more even than it sounds) and reading quietly seems like a way to deal with a feeling of strangeness and stress. Much better than Facebook….

Another Poem from “Old Merlaine”

Another poem from some time ago. I think there are more Bitterbirdie Birds around now than there were then. Prescience….

A Poem from “Old Merlaine”

From the third book I had published, Old Merlaine, poems about an imaginary kingdom found as far as I can remember by the Moonwuzo, who fell into a bucket of water which opened up into this other country. But I’d have to check up. The idea came to me between the bottom and the top of an elevator in Green Park Underground Station. Those were the days….

I have no idea who the Silly Swimpswamp was based on.

Logo, Moonwuzo Books

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

 

Now, of my three score years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

 

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

A.E. Housman

3 Stages and a Lighting Effect

I started off painting this very roughly, and then took a photograph in the afternoon, when (by chance, not design) the light from the window lay over the canvas.  When I looked at the photograph I liked the effect of the window and its shadow, so decided to incorporate this effect in the final picture. I am used to painting illustrations flat on the table, but with this larger painting I propped up the canvas on a chair with two sturdy arms.  I am going to get a piece of wood and balance it on the chair to use as an easel.  The studio is small, and though I have an ornate, gold painted metal easel, this is used to hold many sheets of watercolour paper and big books of expensive artistico fabriano paper which I use for illustration. I also have a table easel which I think I bought in Lidl, or Aldi maybe: but for larger bits of canvas, the chair and the bit of wood will do very well.  It is fun to do something larger and freer after the small pages of illustration: though in a sense this is still an illustration, as it is a painting based on a poem which I wrote many years ago. I have incorporated the words of the poem in the painting.  I admire very much the use that some artists make of words, I haven’t explored this enough, and need to widen the range of my lettering. However, it is fun to realise that there are ways of expanding one’s range. I went to an exhibition of illustration at the Granary Gallery in Berwick upon Tweed (where some of my illustrations were on show among those of other people) and was very interested in one or two paintings which had incorporated words beautifully in their work. Rather a delightful exhibition, connected with Berwick’s first Book Festival, which takes place next weekend, and which it is hoped will be a yearly fixture. The picture above (final version) I delivered today to the Berwick Watchtower Gallery, for their Open Exhibition, which also opens next weekend.

 

The Moonwuzo’s Sea-Song

Who is that walking on the dark sea sand?

The old Bride of the Wind

 

What is that staring out of the weedy pool?

The newborn Monster in its caul

 

What is that eerie chanting from the foam?

The mermaids’ gardening song

 

What is that shadow floating on the water?

The Fish-King’s daughter

 

Who bears those candles down by the Sea’s curled rim?

The children going home

 

from Old Merlaine

Cherry Blossom: “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now”

 

 

From “A Shropshire Lad” by A.E. Housman

 

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

 

 

 

 

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

 

 

 

 

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs is little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.