Spring! The Bullfinch, and the Sparrowhawk Tree

 Thursday 7th May - Election day! 

Spring came early this year and took us all by surprise. During the lovely weather in April I watched from my wagon studio as hawthorn leaves unfolded, celandines and primroses bloomed and the hedgerow birds bustled about looking for suitable nest sites. From the feeder outside my window I spotted nuthatches, greater spotted woodpeckers,wrens, robins, hedge sparrows, and various members of the tit family, including the long tailed tits who love to fly around in jolly gangs. Sadly one day I found a dead female bullfinch dead on the grass outside my wagon - she had flown into the large windows of the door - I took a picture of her and used it as the subject for an etching (seen here on the left) and a monoprint (seen here on the right)......

Then I had the idea of combining a collograph on top of a monoprint. Collographs are basically textures stuck on card, and can be any shape or form , they are varnished to enable ink to be pushed into the texture and printed off through the press. Here are two bullfinch collographs made from various feathers I ve found around....

Results coming up in the next blog!

Meanwhile he sparrowhawks are nesting in the old oak tree - here's their tree ......
   

inspired by this I've started a series of some small paintings about our land........ the full collection will be shown in next years open studios.

And so to this year's SAW arts festival in October - I'll be exhibiting my work with Angie Rook and a great group of painters, printmakers and photographers at the Village hall at North Wootton- more later!