Seven Birdsong paintings

 Birdsong doodles. 

Seven songs of turquoise, rose quartz, peridot, topaz, red gold, emerald, and sapphire. 

Chirrups, chirps, trills, warbles, croaks, twitters, tweets, calls, whistles, carols, rolls.

Match the birdsong sounds to the images.

First Birdsong Painting

 Today I had an impulse to make a series of images of birdsong.  Here is the first Birdsong painting, mixed media and collage on watercolour paper. The photograph does not capture all the subtleties, but gives an idea. There are no birds or musical notes as that would be far too literal.

Purple Iris

From the sketchbook

 

Metamorphoses - fun with butterflies

 Just playing in the sketchbook to test out some new watercolour pencils and masking fluid . . . .

Tulip Time

 It's tulip season and there are some extraordinary tulips in bloom. This is an attempt to capture one of them as it changed over time. Tulips just don't stay the same they open and close their petals and bend their stems to dance in the vase. Catching these changes in paint, ink and crayon. I tore up the drawing and re-assembled the pieces in an attempt to communicate my experience of the flower.

(Easter) eggs (Cosmos of Life series)

Symbol of life and growth -

holding promise, potential, emerging form

Blue City - magical fragments

 I'm exploring themes from the White Lotus Sutra. One theme is the Magic City which provides a temporary respite and stopping place on the journey towards Awakening. Taking a deep dive into the teaching of the Magic City I discover how difficult it is to come up with the right image.  I found myself cutting up one small painting of a Blue City and reforming it into new patterning.  As the Magic City is not a Pure Land it is not yet whole or complete. Although fragmented, nevertheless it has its beauty. There are fresh discoveries, and treasures to be found in alleyways and corners.  The collaged fragments were strangely appealing when I stepped back from the new image and gazed at it afresh. I see this as a preliminary study for a larger painting yet to come.

Below here is another earlier version of the Blue City.

Crayons on paper in sketchbook. Approx A5 size.

Amitabha Variation

A variation on one of my most popular Buddha images 

Snowdrops

 On a spring theme continuing the inspiration of glass art

Three jewels as three flowers in the traditional colours

 Here is another exploration of flowers and glass effects  - mixed media, paint markers on paper, photographed and then tweaked using digital techniques.

Flowers inspired by Tiffany glass

 I have been playing with paint markers on paper.  I love Tiffany glass and was exploring the stained glass style. (The image is from my own imagination). Something a little different came out of the materials and the inspiration.

Manjugosha on Blue Lion throne

 A recently completed exploration of Manjugosha, the gentle voiced prince of wisdom. Acrylic on board. The subtleties in the colour ranges are difficult to capture in a photograph.