A bluetit and a harvest mouse

Today while Alex was a t a birthday party, Abby and I did some painting. It had been a long time... I had another go at a bluetit - they seem to be hard to get right! Abby painted a cute little harvest mouse. 

Andrew Marr, Art, and Life...

Andrew Marr is one of our well-known, most characterful television presenters. He is mostly a political analyst, who brings his dry sense of humour to bear to make political items on the news a bit more fun and interesting (so speaks the non-political me). Poor man had a stroke in January, but he is making a good recovery and is back presenting his weekly show. I went to hear him speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, about his new book on art, and why humans do it.

He is a pretty good artist, but art is not his thing-he-is-famous-for, and the pictures he showed us, which appear in his book, were a mixture of brilliant and, fairly ordinary. But he said a few interesting things along the way, one of which was that he draws three or four times a week, and finds it beneficial, because we all need to spend time "praising the world around us." He went on to say that for him, drawing is probably like praying - not being "a religious man," as he put it. He also said that doing art makes you look at things more, and see things better - which I completely agree with. When I started trying to paint clouds, I suddenly looked at clouds in a lot more detail - where are the shadows, where are the edges - can you call them edges? ... how much grey is there, how many different greys... and other colours? (as Vermeer points out to the Girl in the Pearl Earring...)

I have not managed to do any art for over a year. The last thing I painted was a daffodil, in spring 2012. And it wasn't very good.

But Andrew Marr's talk inspired me to get back to it. He is right that doing art is therapeutic. It makes me enjoy the world around me more. It engrosses me in the right side of the brain, the creative side, which is fun, and  gives me a break from thinking about other things. Making art, even if it is not very good art, is satisfying. We have a natural desire to be making things, all of us do. Some of us write, or cook, or sew, or garden, or play music, but it is all a way of making things. The children in my library make new pictures everyday and want me to stick them up - I already have pictures on top of pictures on the notice board! Here are the bird pictures I painted today (with a thank you to Madeleine Floyd whose style I copied to help me get started...)

Angels bending near the earth

I enjoyed singing Christmas carols so much this year.

I decided my favourite one is It Came upon a Midnight Clear ... "that glorious song of old, from angels bending near the earth, to touch their harps of gold..."

Singing it, I had a picture of a massive angel, hovering over the world, head bent down towards it, seeing and mourning at the wrongdoing and sorrow, but also full of peace that all will be well. Peace that God is in control. Knowing that God sees all, but believing that He also knows the bigger picture, and that there will be justice, and recompense, and a setting right, in the end.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

These pictures are artwork to illustrate this same carol, by Erik Christenson, taken from his blog - I hope he would not mind. I love them.

This photo is of a tomb in the Protestant cemetery in Rome. I resonate with it because it shows how God and the angels grieve with us, even whilst knowing more than us. 

Because we live in a fallen world, that needs the God who came at Christmas, and who will come again.

Nature In Art in Gloucester

Two of the very best things in life, I'm sure you'll agree, are nature and art. So when you come across a place that combines the two, a gallery called Nature In Art, you have to love it. And, take out an annual family membership, right?

Nature in Art is set in an interesting Victorian mansion, in beautiful wild gardens just a couple of miles outside Gloucester.

As well as having a permanent collection of some outstanding art, including one of the well-known elephant paintings by the British artist David Shepherd, they have temporary exhibitions, and also an artist in residence for a week at a time, whom you can watch at work in a studio and talk to for however long you want. Also in the wild and ranging gardens there are all kinds of sculptures, some modern, some "junk metal", some more traditional, which you literally stumble upon as you wander. And a cute and arty shop as well as a cafe, of course. And they run occasional art courses there and one-day activities for children. 

We have been there several times before (I found it in my first ever week in Gloucester). But we went again this week because they were displaying the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition entries and winners - which meant we saw some incredible photographs, including a cricket in mid-jump, a melee of gannets diving underwater surrounded by bubbles, and many more. Abby and Alex weren't at all sure that photography could be called art - until they saw the photographs. 

Beauty, William Morris and the Cotswolds

Yesterday it didn't rain... (for a couple of hours) so I took a break from washing bedding, picking up stuff off Alex's floor until I could actually see the floor, hoovering the stairs, etc, and Abby Frodo and I went for a walk. Gloucester is just on the edge of one of England's prettiest regions, called the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds is a range of gentle hills, mostly countryside, dotted with honey-coloured stone cottages and ancient, sweet villages. We went to Bibury, which is one of the best-known and most-visited villages. It has a clear, wide stream flowing along its main street and past rows of cottages, with ducks, and yesterday even adorable ducklings floating along, and you can see large spotted trout down in the water. We are fortunate to live close to such a beautiful part of England and look forward to exploring it more...

Apparently the famous artist, poet and designer William Morris once called Bibury "the prettiest village in England." William Morris created the most beautiful designs, so he must know. I used to have William Morris posters up on my bedroom walls, - in the days when I used to have arty posters on my walls. I've grown up loving his work but not knowing much about him. He lived from 1834 - 1896 and was one of the leaders of the "Arts and Crafts" design movement.

William Morris wallpaper designs

This is an excerpt I pinched from a website about him:

William Morris 1834 - 1896

Poet, artist, conservationist, craftsman, calligrapher, printer, socialist and "dreamer of dreams": William Morris was all of these and more. Born in 1834, much of Morris' life was influenced by the Cotswold countryside. Kelmscott Manor near Lechlade, not far from Bibury, became his country home from 1871 until his death in 1896. Kelmscott played an important part in his life and can still be visited today. Morris was one of the leaders of the Arts & Crafts Movement which flourished from 1850 - 1920 and spread across Europe and North America. Many of his followers remained in the Cotswolds, and this tradition is still alive today, and inspiration for artists and craftworkers in the countryside.

Robin

My second painting since being in England... I feel a series coming on!

Good Friday thoughts

To be honest this Lent I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about Good Friday. And I haven't given anything up, in fact, I have been letting myself be quite self-indulgent, especially with the Dairy Milk Chocolate...

Usually in the past, a lot of my pre-Easter thinking has been wondering how Jesus felt about his upcoming death, how he could do it, what it took for him to accept that path and allow it to happen, how he anticipated the pain, and how he felt about the humiliation and nakedness, and whether knowing it would be just for one day helped (as in a woman anticipating labour). This year when I began to think about it at the start of this week, I realised I couldn't put my mind into that place this year. It was too hard. So then I thought, shall I mentally take this Easter off?, as I pretty much have done with Lent. But then I thought, maybe I don't need to put myself into Jesus' place, maybe that's the wrong thing to be doing anyway. Jesus didn't ever expect me to die in public for the whole world. (Well, probably not.)

So in church this morning at a lovely service we went to at Trinity Cheltenham, I decided just to be in front of the Cross and be thankful for it.

That is why when I looked at some images of the crucifixion this afternoon, I loved this one I have posted, because my eyes are immediately drawn to the women, almost throwing themselves on the foot of the Cross.

But really, thank goodness for the Resurrection! I'm looking forward to Sunday!

Palms...

Back in England for Palm Sunday... Once again I feel underwhelmed by the palm crosses we are given in church here.

I know they are palm leaves picked in the Holy Land, dried and specially folded for us... and at least they are not the three inch ones that we had for a couple of years, but a decent size...

But, I much preferred in Uganda when we picked real four foot long palm leaves in our garden on our way to church, or were given them in church. I loved how the whole congregation was a green sea of waving branches during the Palm Sunday service.

To me, it brought one so much closer to the original scene, of Jesus being welcomed and waved gladly into Jerusalem by the Passover crowds.










The hoisting and vigorous swishing of hundreds of palm branches during each hymn just impelled one to grin and sing joyfully - how could you be solemn while all that was going on. It was so fun.

A fuzzy picture but it gives the impression I remember, ... and some familiar faces...

The joy and sweetness of the Palm Sunday worship is so poignant because the original welcoming crowds changed their minds by the end of the week and shouted for Jesus' death. So I just can't help wondering while singing "Ride on, ride on in Majesty" every year, whether by the end of the week I would also have been shouting, "Crucify him." Honestly, I am not a very brave person, so I fear that I might have joined in to save my own skin. But I hope not, because I feel as though my faith in Jesus and my gratitude to him is deeper than that.

Two images I enjoy of the first Palm Sunday:

I love icons, but don't really know much about them - I would love to learn about their symbolism one day. I know that that is Zacchaeus in the tree, and there are people laying down their cloaks in front of Jesus - but no real palm leaves in evidence - I guess the Russian artist didn't know what they looked like?