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

From Old Merlaine: Colonel Silver Shankskin

From Old Merlaine: The Silly Swimpswamp

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Silly Swimpswamp

Poem from Old Merlaine

The Beaky Masher

Poem from Old Merlaine

Colonel Silver Shankskin