I have a very special scrap of fabric which I keep in my work room, hanging on the wall in a frame. It dates from about 1973 or 1974, and it is special because it represents a magical Christmas. My parents didn't have a lot of spare money back in the 70s, so for my 14th or 15th Christmas Dad had built, in secret, the most beautiful rocking chair which he painted white. My Mum made a cushion for its seat, and covered it in that fabric. They also gave me a book of Arthur Rackham illustrations, and the album Now We Are Six ​by Steeleye Span. I was absolutely blown away!

I love the fabric so much that over the years I have made countless drawings of it. It gives me a very special feeling, which a friend once told me is called 'congruence'. About 2 weeks ago I started a new drawing of it in earnest, using Procreate so I could use the layers as colour separations. I am totally fascinated with the way colour can completely change the feeling of a textile, and could literally play around with different colourways for ever!

The top left square here is the closest to the original colours. I had a wonderful time experimenting, I find it therapeutic at times when the dreaded block happens and helps to get me back on track with my work. The most difficult thing to do here was to limit my experiments to just 9 for this post!

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It’s the full moon, and this morning’s is a ‘super blood wolf moon’! A total lunar eclipse gives a reddish tint to the full moon, and during this time the moon will be slightly closer to the Earth than usual. Plus, the January full moon is known as the wolf moon or great spirit moon - giving us this wonderfully Harry Potter-sounding ‘super blood wolf moon’.
We have begun to have small flurries of snow and frosty nights here in Scotland, so I drew this scene with ice crystals and snowflakes tinged pink by the blood moon falling around two silently-staring wolves.

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Back to work on the children's book illustrations (which naturally i can't share until the book is out), but here is a drawing I made during a limbering-up session - a crow breathing flowers to herald in the spring. I know it's a bit soon to start thinking about spring flowers, although the snowdrops are already out in my garden; last year we had The Beast From the East blow in about 10 inches of snow overnight on the last night of February. The snow slid off our roof above the kitchen door and made a pile that nearly covered the door to the top, making it impossible to get out that way! It's not uncommon for us to have snow in March here in Scotland, so I suppose we still have all that drama to get through before the flowers really come out!

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HAPPY 2019 EVERYBODY!

I spent the last few days putting away the Christmas decorations and getting them up into the loft. After that I couldn't muster the energy to get into anything too serious - so I took a day out and used the time to explore areas of Procreate which I had never used. It never does any harm to get to know your tools better, and I found the Drawing Guide plus radial symmetry. I had so much fun trying out different brushes and marks with it, I was quite fascinated, learnt a lot, and produced what could be some beautiful headscarf designs!

​Thanks for visiting, see you next week!