Monday, January 26, 2009

Four paintings and feeding the birds



A wild sea raged down at the beach when I walked the dogs this morning. Sunshine and surf. I floated a boat in a dark rock pool with the rising waves as a backdrop.
Sometimes it takes a while to get to work and even with a deadline of Thursday evening looming large I had to fill the bird feeders with seeds before I could start. The fluttering of wings outside my window and wonderful radio 4 kept me painting through the day. Then when tiredness set in I decided that I would paint on and listen to the wonderful Vespertine by Bjork with its magical music boxes, and when the last notes played I would stop for the day.
Working on the endpapers and struggling with space as I work on all four pieces at once and try and juggle the drawing boards around my studio. Now the first is finished I think, and its partner almost, though I have to paint the star patterns. One and two show the northern and southern hemisphere stars on 21st December at midnight. Three and four will be north and south on 21st June at midnight. ( If you click on them they get bigger and you can see the small things within)







Have also been listening to The Hare's Corner and The Frames. When I get the scans back from Barefoot Books I want to try and make a film using the artwork and story and the soundtrack will be from The Hare's Corner. I wrote to Colm via his wife Sheila to ask permission to use it and he said yes. The Swell Season are touring in Australia at the moment. I first heard of them when I watch a film called Once. The most amazing film, I felt that I was eavesdropping on the lives of others while watching it. It is extraordinary. Through it I found The Frames and The Swell Season and then while looking for hares found, by coincidence, The Hare's Corner.
If you look in the top left corner of the Hare's Corner website there is a small drop down menu for those who speak English rather than Gaelic.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hares Corner link is in Gaelic and my linguistics stop at Cymru! But I'm sure I can take it through Babelfish. When I find time!
The endpapers will be beautiful, Jackie. (It's quite breezy today, with big tides so I'm going to launch a boat in the mangroves.)

Anonymous said...

Jackie, the winter solstice end page for the northern Hemisphere is just wonderful ... I'm so pleased that you've capture the "sacred circle" that is apparent at Winter Solstice.

Truly enchanting - I can't wait for the "summers" ...

Ricka - Indiana

Jess said...

I'm totally in love with your star paintings Jackie! I do hope they'll be available as wall prints too one day. I for one would stand in line to buy them!x

Anonymous said...

I wondered if you salt to achieve the effect on the blue.I think they are perfect.Just perfect.

Jackie Morris said...

Yes, sprinklings of salt on layers of paint. Sometimes I allow the paint to dry and sometimes I wash and salt over the top. Too much salt makes it crusty. Great for using on school visits as you can get into science and talking about how the salt breaks up the surface tension of the water and distributes the colour.

quiltcat said...

Gorgeous...and i love the sea serpents and the Clydesdalicorn and all the details as well as the depths of the star charts. I agree that i'd love to have prints of each of the endpapers!