Medusa at Beltaine; Medusa at Bathtime

I have another etching for the 2014 calendar! Apologies for not getting round to posting the sketch for this one, which I have in fact been working on and off since Beltaine was suggested by Lily Wight. (thank you Lily! :-)) Beltaine seemed an excellent idea, and another mixing of legends / metaphors like the January picture. The scant research I did suggested the dancing around bonfires, the belief that on this night the ‘other’ world and its creatures was much closer to this world than usual, much nakedness and revelry, and of course, it suggested Celtic and Pagan deities,…

Two new Medusa etchings

Here, finally, are two more etchings for the 2014 calendar. These are prints from the plates I showed you a few days ago. Sorry, I made you wait a while, I’ve had guests staying and no time to post them! Here’s ‘Snakes in the Long Grass’ – the picture for July (or June). The dark tones are produced by etching, and then the highlights on the figure, grass and snakes are put in by burnishing the aluminium to make it smoother again.. And here is the Scarecrow Medusa. In this one the birds and twigs are etched, and the rest…

The waiting game…

Two more plates for the Medusa calendar, ‘finished’ and ready to print. Now, I enjoy etching, really I do, it appeals to my little techy brain, and although I usually paint pictures nowadays, a BA in jewellery and an MA in metals conservation in my past do suggest that I have something of an affinity for metals… But here’s the annoying thing: I have done all this work and I have no idea if the actual pictures that I will get to print on Tuesday will be any good at all. That’s the drawback with etching – you get to…

More spelling animals…

Another nephew had a birthday, so out came the Snakes and Ladders again. Fairly soon I am going to have to chose another species of Spelling Animal….

Medusa, made flesh, in stone.

There are many things I fail to get round to posting on this blog, and it would have been a shame if this had been one of them! Following some pretty poor weather, rain, cold, rain, snow, rain and a spot of rain, it was finally dry enough for the wall of our house to be finished a couple of weeks ago, maybe even three weeks ago. And so my beautiful new carving of Medusa – carved at unbelievably short notice by Tom Clark, in Portland stone – could finally be revealed in all her glory. Here she is: My…

Snakes in the long grass

Just a quick post, as I have another sketch for the 2014 Medusa calendar that I thought you might like to see. I have found it more difficult to get a grip on the late spring and summer months: May June and July. Perhaps the start and ending of things are more characterful. Even August was not a problem, because that is shading off into Autumn and fruitfulness (August has a plum tree if you haven’t seen it), but somewhere in the middle of the year I find the months a little indistinct. So, this is probably the sketch for…