Blog
Owl Awareness Day
International Owl Awareness Day was actually on Sunday (4th August, 2019) – but I’m celebrating today as this morning there were traces (lime splatter) that an owl had been present in the shed overnight. The find fires my imagination. This year the Kestrels nested in the box, and I haven’t seen much evidence of […]
Just before Dusk
That is when I saw it, though they fly well into the night too. It looked silvery in the moorland evening light, and then seemed to disappear when it landed, and though I carefully marked the spot where it settled, when I got to it there was no sign. The Green Carpet is so […]
Pretty Posies
Picking fresh flowers from the garden and bringing them into the house for display is a divinely simple pleasure. Arranging little posies, single buds, or a tangle of tumbling stems brings delight, and doesn’t it give such happy satisfaction? A touch of nature right by your side, on table, shelf, bedside .. oh, just […]
A life-size Dog Sculpture
It isn’t at all surprising that for many thousands of years artists have drawn, painted and sculpted dogs, our beautiful, loyal pets are loved so much and become an integral part of our lives. It has been such a wonderful experience for me to carve various dog sculptures over the years and meeting the […]
Mice are Nice
I agree with Rose Fyleman in her poem I think mice are rather nice; Their tails are long, their faces small; They haven’t any chins at all. Their ears are pink, their teeth are white, They run about the house at night, They nibble things they shouldn’t touch, and, no one seems to like […]
In the Workshop today – ferns
After carving Gold Leaf I’ve had many requests to carve similar pieces, with a variety of leaves, sprigs, flora and fauna. This one delicately describes the unfurling of fern fronds. Here I’m drawing onto the stone in preparation for carving, trying to get the very specific way ferns hold themselves to fit onto the […]
Hare Sculpture
Showing some of the stages of carving my Hare sculpture in Portland Limestone. The shape is roughed out and I’m just drawing lines to refine the outline and details in the head. A Hare is so lithe and wild that in this stylised sculpture I have to get the flow and balance perfect, to […]
Botanical Sculpture – pod series
There’s nothing more I like than polishing a sculpture once all the surface sanding and preparation has been done. It is the moment when the colours and richness of the stone are revealed to surprise and astonish. For this pod I selected a serpentine stone, knowing it was green, but ultimately its true colours, […]
Plant Shapes
My foray into the extraordinary detail and beauty of plant shapes and seeds in particular continues – what remarkable tiny and exotic representations of nature they are. From the pod stem swells a bursting body, with lip, a curved edge as opening out of which the seed will disperse. This simple single pod, holding […]
The Beauty of Form in Nature
One of my favourite books is Nature as Designer – A Botanical Art Study by Bertel Bager. I have stared countless times at the astonishing photographs in the book and always thought how sculptural the fruits, flowers, seeds and cones appear. Each photograph is accompanied by a write-up about the plant in question, with fascinating […]