Perpetual journal / Nature Diary Feb

At last we have had some sunny warmer days and Winter seems to be passing. Here are my February days. The first spring flowers and a little more colour. The last picture is of a Nuthatch I stitched from the drawing on the first page. Hope you are all well out there and getting through this lockdown. We have had our first vaccine jabs and hoping the time will come when we can see our friends and relatives again. Much love to you all.

 

Perpetual journal / nature Diary Jan

Perpetual Journal for January. As you can see I have been mostly drawing birds this month. The weather has been very cold and not much foliage to draw. This year has been more about wishing for signs of Spring. In strict lockdown with horrendous numbers of deaths and new cases of Covid it has been a grim month. Thank goodness for drawing and stitching and our daily walks. If you scroll down you will see a new work in progress using these drawings as inspiration for stitch. More detail  and daily progress on Instagram. Love to you all out there, keep on going on. My husband is to have his first jab on Saturday, every person I hear of having their jabs is a little bit more hope. x

 

Nature Diary Dec 2020

Here are my December pages, looking forward to working for the third year running in my Perpetual Journal. the pages are beginning to fill up! Seems rather odd to wish you all a Happy New year when National lockdown has just been announced again. But still I do send my best wishes to you all, stay safe and well. I consider myself very lucky because drawing and stitching keeps me busy all day long. Stay creative everyone. x

 

November Perpetual Nature Journal.

Hello to everyone! Here are my pages for November in my perpetual journal. Some pages are beginning to fill up and I am glad I put in some extra pages at the beginning and end of the month. The black and white wren is one of my favourites and I have just finished the jackdaw on the last page. So a bit of a black and white theme going on here. I am stitching the wren at the moment in black and white threads. Love to you all, enjoy the advent season and keep safe and well.

 

Oak tree embroideries.

I thought I would talk to you about my latest work. In the summer Radio 4 had readings from The Oak Papers by James Canton. I loved them and sent for the book which I adored. It is about the solace that being close to Nature- in this case an ancient oak tree - can bring to mind and body. I knew what he meant and understood it. It is also full of the facts, history and myths around the oak tree and how important it has been in this country.

I sought out a few of our local oaks and have been observing, drawing and spending time with them. One especially, an oak tree in -The Enormous Field - an earlier set of embroideries which you could find here following the labels at the bottom. So I have made a start on this new set of work about oak trees. I have been posting them on Instagram as I work them so you can watch them develop.

The idea is that they will be shown at Fresh Air Sculpture at Quennington, Near Cirencester next June when hopefully the pandemic will be behind us and life will have returned to a new normal. Meanwhile I just keep on stitching and that sustains me. Keep safe everyone and take the image of the acorn with you. As James Canton says it is a great symbol of Hope.
 

October Perpetual Nature Journal.

Here are my October pages. Mostly leaves, nuts and berries. Perhaps not so many entries as some months but it will fill up over the years, if I can keep on with it. I love doing it and can see my drawing improving over the last few years. Well that sounds conceited but seeing that improvement spurs me on. National Lockdown has just been announced so there may be more time for drawing but we have stayed quietly at home anyway. Enjoy this Autummn colour it has been glorious.

Little Dunnock - ever present in the garden and a real joy to watch ferreting around in the leaf litter.

 

Perpetual Journal September.

September pages from my perpetual journal. What a change from last month - Autumn colours, berries and leaves. We normally go away in September, alas no holiday this year, so there wasn't a lot of drawing from 2019. But we have our new kitchen and Alan has had his hernia operation and mending slowly so we can't complain. Just to stay well is a bonus and counting our blessings.Love to you all who read this blog x