Dear readers,
Happy July! I hope that wherever you are, you get the chance to have at least one icecream in the sunshine in the coming weeks! (If you’ve already had one… Get another for yourself and a friend so they can enjoy a treat and your overwhelming generosity!)
I’ve got so much to tell you about, I have been writing furiously about projects I’ve been working on over the past couple of months (including an update on the silent book concept I first mentioned at the end of last year!)
At the moment they’re all sat waiting for final edits in my “drafts” folder, but my aim is to release one every two- three weeks now (as I haven’t been very good with keeping up with my blog posts yet this year!) – I’ve got a few crackers to share!
Something incredible happened this weekend, though, that before I could release any of my previous writing I HAD to share with you; before I burst with excitement, love and gratitude. A once in a lifetime experience, both fascinating and humbling.
For about a month I’ve been pretty down in the dumps after recovering from a particularly nasty flu bug. You know the type: the kind that karate-chops you to your knees and sends you packing to bed, and when you try to get up and make an effort to do something productive (to break the seemingly endless tedium of feeling teary and sore and sorry for yourself) it all goes a bit pear-shaped, your concentration is at 0% and the whole horrid cycle starts again. The sort that you’re sure is just hanging in there until you do one too many things in your week again, and re-releases all your favourite smash hits (like your amazing manly chesty cough that lends your impression of Tom Jones an extra something) and you just know it’s about to claw it’s way back to full strength again.
I went to visit my partner and his parents in order to hopefully throw this bug off once and for all; with fresh air, exercise and to see some animals.
And see some animals I did.
My partner’s father had taken in a house martin chick which was the only survivor from a flooded nest. He hadn’t suspected it to be alive much longer, but after over a week of feeding it with tweezers it had transformed into a plump little creature, with open, clear eyes and adult feathers just beginning to develop. I witnessed her many mealtimes and even had a go at feeding her, which was beautiful in itself- the food preparation “station” was next to her makeshift nest, and as we cut up the food into manageable pieces for her to swallow, she would cheep incredibly loudly and flap her tiny wings in excitement.
I asked one evening if I might be able to draw her. We brought her makeshift nest to the table, and the lamp my partner’s father used to keep her warm at night was used for a bit of extra light. As soon as I opened my sketchbook, she began to cheep, watching my every move with her tiny, beady eyes. She was around a foot away from me, and I could see every little detail on her tiny body; the youngster fluff clinging to the top of her head like large eyebrows, her perfect little wings and tail, with juvenile feathers coming through. I have never seen eyes so small or intense, each one no bigger than an individual blackberry pip, watching me with unbroken concentration, trying to work out if my pencils were food or not.
With music coming from the next room, I recognised an Irish folk song cover, the tune to which I learnt from the “Song of the Sea” film by Cartoon Saloon. I can’t speak Irish, but I know the title is “Dúlamán”, and even if I can’t understand the lyrics at present I know what the words should sound like, so I always have a good crack at singing along. As I drew I instinctively started humming and mumbling along, quietly so as not to frighten the little creature sat inches away from me.
And, in the way that she only ever did before when she was full and sleepy, the chick stopped cheeping. She looked me square in the eye as I sang, almost as though she was listening. I carried on drawing, but I barely looked down at my paper. Those tiny eyes held my gaze so ferociously I didn’t dare. In those precious moments I could almost see her first flights, her migrations, perhaps further than I might ever get in all my years in her first three or four. She sat silently until the song had finished, then almost as though she had been paused, she began cheeping and watching my paper again.
I have never stared for quite so long into the eyes of a wild creature before, but there was something in that sitting that is what every art tutor or teacher in the land tries to convey when they say they prefer you to draw from first-hand experiences, from life. There was energy rumbling through that little chick’s whole being that I never would have understood just from a photograph. Someone told me once that my work can be quite “lyrical”- if I listen to music as I draw, some of it in translated into the lines I use. Singing to that little creature allowed me to record just a tiny ounce of that experience into my favourite sketchbook.
All at once, that one intense, three minute eye-lock has cured me better than any flu medicine ever could.
The AutumnHobbit
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