Synchronised flying! I became very interested in this collage when the birds suddenly became a pattern in the landscape, it's a novel combination. I'm sure it's got something to do with living beneath the flight-path of geese crossing the sky to and from a local nature reserve. They form huge skeins and the air is full of their chatter and gabble as they pass over, a beautiful thing indeed. The geese here are one of my pareidolia finds in damp patches on paths on the park.

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Revisiting pareidolia drawings and the south east coast of Fife, this work is typical of a trip to the fishing villages at this time of year - little cars parked on the front, probably sheltering people inside with flasks of soup and sandwiches, or perhaps eating delicious fish and chips bought from the local shops, looking out over a rainy River Forth. 

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It has been quite a busy week, in spite of the two bank holidays on Monday and Tuesday. I took down the Christmas decorations on Wednesday, which took all day; Thursday and Friday saw two social engagements, the first we have had for such a long time it was overwhelming! Having to take lateral flow tests and observe social bubbles adds quite a lot to a day with an event. I have been a couch potato ever since; this afternoon I am lounging on the sofa, laptop on knees, dressed stylishly in a fleece Minnie Mouse onesie and a dressing gown decorated with koala bears with ears on its hood, with a hot water bottle and a snuggly blanket to add luxury. I haven't made any new work since before the Christmas period, so today I'm posting the collage above which I made on the 19th December.

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My best nine posts on Instagram this year. I am so grateful for every single like and comment, and for those wonderful people who have supported my work for years.

Mixing that shaky, nervous line with other textures I made a sleeping Robin dreaming of spring, still on my favourite grainy background.

I have become very interested in using a traditional drawing style to make sketches of my patterns this week, and looking for birds and other floral and blossoming motifs. A nervous line with a variety of weight over a favourite texture (ink bleed in Procreate on what I think must have been a photo of a grainy porch window at Wester Lix) is doing it for me right now. I'm already thinking Valentine's Day and spring.

This is something I love doing: making collages in a digital sketchbook, using all sorts of bits and pieces I'm working on at any one time. It's something I can do anywhere in odd moments, and they make lovely posts for Instagram. I knew I had a busy time coming up making birthday cards, Christmas cards, shopping, gift-wrapping, and getting the Christmas decorations out; so I had a sketchbook binge and created a few collages to keep Instagram lively.

In 2018 I made several artworks on the subject of crows. I do love crows, colonies of these beautiful birds inhabit the tall trees around our house. They combine the macabre - Nature's cleaners, carrion eaters - with their dark beauty and excellence as parents. I have seen two crows desperately nurturing a young fledgling fallen from the nest with such tenderness until it was strong and able to fly, defending it from all dangers every day and night. 

I am thinking of making prints from these cleaned-up originals, the poetry and inkiness of the crows has an otherworld quality. When my parents died I was convinced their souls were still inhabiting the environs of the house and garden in crow form, looking over me and protecting me, and I still look up to the trees and speak to them.
When I was living amongst the mountains of rural Perthshire a local farmer used to hang dead crows by their feet all around his lambing fields. He told me it was to deter the crows, who would come in the spring and peck the tongues out of the mouths of new-born lambs. The lambs would subsequently die because they couldn't feed. It's a gothic horror story of nature's wild, untamed force associated with crows. It adds to their frighteningly powerful dark side. I suppose lambs' tongues must be some kind of superfood for the crows' young, or perhaps a great delicacy, and I can't help being reminded of King Crimson's 1973 album Larks' Tongues in Aspic which I loved when I was in my mid teens.

I will have an update of the finished pattern very soon, I hope - to go from bees to bottles in total mood contrast, I have to get on with making this years' Christmas cards this coming week!

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I did take a break from social media with no blogs or Instagram and very refreshing it was, too; I was able to put all my focus into new designs. This blog doesn't quite reflect the break because I like it to be a chronological diary of my work, so today I simply posted back-dated images of my work at the time into the missing weeks without much writing.

Still on my mission to create a Spoonflower shop, this is another rework of Yay Flowers I completed this week, in a clear, bright style which I hope will reproduce better than the last. I introduced extra movement and texture with the use of stippled lines which excited me a lot, it made me think of cartoons so I experimented with some big, bold colours as well as quieter palettes.

When I first started using a new, clear and flat style I was nervous - nowhere to hide! Now I am enjoying it so much I don't find it strange any more, and I find there is much more I can bring to it than I initially thought. I have just started a new version of Birds and Berries which I hope to have finished by next weekend, then I'll be onto Christmas cards. Bring on the mulled wine and sherry!

Also this week, my godchild/B's daughter came to stay which was wonderful and a joy; not so wonderful or a joy was yet another failed job application. Oh well, more time for artwork!

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Not really a proper blog today, I'm taking a break from social media while exploring new directions (no sinister reasons, just taking a busman's holiday) - but here's a sneak preview of one of my new patterns work in progress until I get back into it.

I decided at least for now not to use the Schooldays pattern because it's a bit spindly, but I have singled out some of the motifs from it, reworked them, and used them as pattern elements.

Once again trick-or-treating was only virtual this year with rising Covid cases, but I was delighted to see our local young families dressed to the nines having an outdoor Hallowe'en met-up in our communal grove. Even the youngest baby was fierce in a lion costume in his witch-mummy's arms with proud swashbuckling pirate dad at her side, and there were all sorts of dinosaurs and monsters! So here are my own little trick-or-treaters wishing everyone a Happy Hallowe'en, quite a motley crew to turn up on your digital doorstep. I had great fun making them into a rogue's gallery, too.