Night Peacock

 I painted a peacock on black paper using metallic watercolour.  It did not photograph well.  I tweaked the photograph as best I could using various filters, then copied it into the Brushes App and played with the image digitally, using various digital brushes and colours until I had an image I was satisfied with. 

Owl in Moonlight

Flight of the Swan

A tiny sketch from my sketchbook

Sailing the Wind

Paper Crane

Last week I found a tiny paper crane in my purse. It was given to me at Hiroshima by a peace volunteer who showed us round the exhibits in the museum there. I made this digital drawing during my Japanese trip in November last year. The crane is a symbol of long life as Japanese folk lore believes the crane lives for a thousand years. It is also a symbol of happiness, good luck and peace. Because of the young girl who thought that if she made a thousand cranes she would survive her cancer, the paper crane has become a potent symbol for the city of Hiroshima and hundreds of folded cranes arrive in the city from all over the world.

Robin

This is a tiny painting created for seasonal greeting cards

Sunbird

....continuing the theme of the Phoenix....

Aviary of WIld Flying Thoughts

Today, reading Hillman, I came across an image he's taken from Plato of the rich and crazy mind as a wonderful aviary of wild flying thoughts.  Here are two pictures of wild flying thoughts.  Each image tells a story and is evocative of its own truths.

White bird on Dark Background

Birds soaring upwards

Sailing the WInd

Today I made a picture of a bird sailing the wind. 
Watching the seagulls, I was reminded of the work of Peter Lanyon and Georges Braque.
Have you ever watched a gull ride the thermals?  Here is Peter Lanyon's painting of a thermal http://bit.ly/r8q30H so evocative of Cornwall's coast with its currents and sea mists, so expressive of Lanyon's strong feeling for the elements. I imagine it as a record of his experience of gliding on the winds. I shall never forget how he was to die tragically in a gliding accident four years after he completed this picture.
A bird flies through Braque's studio http://bit.ly/qHlkar. It comes from a series of late paintings which are amongst my all time favourites for their spatial sophistication and complexity. 
On the ceilings of the Louvre Braque's birds fly. They are framed by a 16th century richly carved ceiling.  There is an apparent simplicity to the design. I admire his masterful handling of space and form. Here is a sketch he made for this http://bit.ly/nL7Ffz and here the context which frames them.http://bit.ly/paB1FP