December days

  Early morning of mist and sky of silver.

Out on a walk the other day to see the annual Christmas tree festival at the Abbey, I saw roses in bloom. I love this pink against the colour of stone.

The carvings stand out even more so in Winter. When the garden is quite bare, how wonderful it would be, to have stone sculptures and to enjoy the colour and pattern as the stone ages and lichens make their home upon it.

 The apple tree looked very festive. 

Our home is also looking very festive now. The tree is up and most of my Christmas shopping is almost done. I still have to bring the holly and Ivy in, but I always do that on the 21st.

                                                                             ~*~

Over on the Facebook page there are only a few more days of the advent post left now. Here's a few of the latest pictures.

December 12th was a sketch that came about when I was listening to music and just doodling really. At the time I was listening to a song called 'Staralfur' by Sigur ros. In Icelandic I believe it means 'Staring Elf' although I think he may be more gnome-ish? I love how music can make a story appear on paper.  You can listen to the song here if you like. :)

December 14th was an older sketch which you may have already seen on here? I'm not sure if I shared it before? Anyway here it is again with a little extra magic added.

And today's picture was a small painting that I did yesterday, just playing around with one of the previous sketches.

For now I am Winter

One of the beautiful things about Winter is the fiery skies.You can almost smell them smouldering as you breathe out what looks like accompanying smoke into the frosted air. You have to be quick to catch them as they pass so fast and all too soon darkness has descended.  I tried to time it perfectly this evening and went out, but came back in as I realised I had in fact a better view from the window. 

Over on my Facebook page I have been posting something up everyday. A face book advent calendar type thing. You may have seen these, if you haven't here's a sample..Sketches and photo's and such like. I will share here the sketches as the photo's you may have seen before? 

 

This last one 'The journey north' I hope to work on as a painting very soon.

I don't have an advent calendar, but my teenagers do. This year it is a chocolate one. We normally alternate the years with picture/chocolate. Which one do you have? ...

To celebrate the beginning of Winter I had an early birthday present yesterday and went to see Olafur Arnalds perform at St Georges in Bristol. He is coming to the end of his 'For now I am Winter' tour. It was just beautiful and perfect for my beginning of Winter. :) 

I think I will be rummaging in the cupboard to find the Christmas decorations this weekend..

I will leave you with the title track of Olafur Arnalds album.  Have a magical weekend. x

    

Original Paintings For Sale

My 'Winter' paintings  have just come back from the framers. I've been meaning to get these done  for ages and finally got around to it. Something I can tick off the list. Yay!

Quite a lot of folk have enquired whether these paintings were going to be for sale so I can now share that, yes, they will be going into my Etsy shop on Wednesday 22nd May at 7pm (UK time)

                                                             
                                                                           ~*~
There were some beautiful moments of light this weekend. I managed to capture some of them.
I was up at dawn on Saturday morning and this was my view from the bedroom window.

A liquid gold seeping through the clouds. 

The gold came and went that day.I caught another glimpse later in the evening.
Here the young ash illuminated. The light behind it's new leaves making it a vivid sulphur yellow.

Sun caught through branches, as it was setting.

I will leave you with a song named Sunlight, in which I love the imagery.