the painted forest

I do seem to be spawning sites and blogs at an alarming rate this week! My latest is http://www.thepaintedforest.webeden.co.uk/

After completing the bird cupboard I found myself very taken with the idea of reviving old pieces of furniture and giving them a new lease of life. It's painstaking (I can't possibly work at it fast enough to keep up with the flow of ideas running through my head!) but I have finished the first piece, which I'm calling Bird Table (above). The Painted Forest site will be the online gallery/shop for the furniture pieces and limited edition prints (although I may decide to keep the pieces for myself, not sure yet!). The website is still very much a work in progress as finding the time to get it up and running is proving tricky!

growing boy planted elsewhere

As this blog is mostly taken up with my rambling and random stuff that I'm working on, The Growing Boy book has been planted elsewhere in his own blog. I hope that now he is no longer languishing in the dark he will begin to flourish....

suite francaise

I have just finished reading Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky, published more than 60 years after her death in a Nazi concentration camp. The book itself is perceptive, sad and, at times, very funny (the author character, Gabriel Corte is hideous and hilarious!) but Appendix II is heartbreaking - letters from Irène before her arrest and then from her husband - wondering what has happened to her, trying to get her out and, in desperation, to swap places with her. Many are written, unknown to him, after she was already dead, only a few weeks after her arrest. Her husband was himself arrested a few months later and sent straight to the gas chamber, while her two small daughters managed to evade capture by hiding in various cellars aided by familyfriends. Horrible. I can't imagine what it must have been like to live through those times.

Juno

The Juno illustrations for March. One took a couple of days, one a couple of hours - and I

think the quick one is definitely my favourite! Spontaneous is sometimes better, I guess...

Hamish homework

Jack got his nursery school bear home for the weekend - a huge responsibility! He took it very seriously on the first night, with lots of kisses and cuddles and long, whispered conversations to the bear. He even introduced Hamish the bear to his teddies, Sid & Brian.

We took the bear for a walk on Saturday but then forgot about him completely - he spent the night in the buggy in the porch (oops!). There was a lot of making up to do on Sunday...

Part of the responsibility was to write a letter 'from' Hamish to the other children, which the teacher reads out in the story corner on Monday morning when the bear is returned to school (aarghh, and I had the Science Festival deadline looming!!!). The illustrations are from the letter we did - easier to draw doodles of the events than try to make a quiet weekend sound exciting!

Also, I'm not quite sure if this has developed into a full blown imaginary friend, but Jack seems to be 'talking' to an invisible someone called 'Carrot'!

magnifiscience

Echo the Bat (above) for the Fife Science Festival. There are eight panels telling the Scottish story of the evolution of ultrasound.

I hate January

It's the longest, coldest, most miserable month. Really. I'm always sorely tempted to leave my Christmas lights up until I see the first green buds of spring to cheer up the greyness of January. Most days it's been hard to tell when the day ends and night begins; I feel like I haven't seen sunshine for weeks.... So, I'm hibernating... and drawing... and waiting for spring. Roll on.