Woodlouse & Moon (Cornish grammarsow)

Needle-punch sketches
Superfine Merino through handmade papers 

These are so delicate, with superfine wool, that if I breathe too closely when making them the fibres/lines move and a leg changes, an expression alters dramatically.

I love creating these, and they started so unintentially, with wool falling onto paper... and they symbolise, to me, the contrast between bold definition and fragility, being altered/ blown away so easily... existing then not, with a breath.

                                                                                                                                                    *****

Excellent quality giclee prints of these originals are also available and they look so wonderful and tactile...
​I have sold to many happy customers. They will be sent mounted, backed and wrapped. Please contact me for further details.

Beautiful handmade cards are also available
A process of creating print originals using Textile Artists Paper, Fair Trade Mitsumata Nepalese paper and Rag & Cotton papers 

Please click here for a review of my 'Snail and Mt.Fuji' card :-) - 'My card of the year!'

​Little Bittern and Moon

'Within the bird there beats a heart,
And from the heart there flows a song,
And in the song there sings a word.

In the word there speaks a world,
A world of joy, a world of grief,
From joy and grief there springs my love.'

Reading Kathleen Raine, 'A Spell for Creation' so beautiful x ... and I'm not sure why the Little Bittern came to mind, perhaps that it is 'common' though rare, so small for a heron, secretive, easily overlooked.... clambering high in reeds, feeding low along edges.

This is a female, with golden bill, golden legs... and a great shining O of the moon.

Sketch in ethical wools SOLD £95
A Spell For Creation

Within the flower there lies a seed,
Within the seed there springs a tree,
Within the tree there spreads a wood.

In the wood there burns a fire,
And in the fire there melts a stone,
Within the stone a ring of iron.

Within the ring there lies an O,
Within the O there looks an eye,
In the eye there swims a sea,

And in the sea reflected sky,
And in the sky there shines the sun,
Within the sun a bird of gold.

Within the bird there beats a heart,
And from the heart there flows a song,
And in the song there sings a word.

In the word there speaks a world,
A world of joy, a world of grief,
From joy and grief there springs my love.

Oh love, my love, there springs a world,
And on the world there shines a sun,
And in the sun there burns a fire,

Within the fire consumes my heart,
And in my heart there beats a bird,
And in the bird there wakes an eye,

Within the eye, earth, sea and sky,
Earth, sky and sea within an O
Lie like the seed within the flower.
‘The Crane & the Moon’
Needle-punch sketch SOLD £125 
​
The crane is a mystical, sacred creature in Japan
symbolising good fortune and longevity
with a fabled life span of a thousand years... 
 
 
Eihei Dogen (1200 - 1253)
‘Waka (Poem) on Impermanence’
The world? Moonlit
Drops shaken
From the crane’s bill.

'The Quail and the Moon'
Inspired by the beautiful true story 'That Quail, Robert' by Margaret Stanger 
Picture
Merino Wool on handmade paper (30 x 21cm, framed) SOLD £125
Picture
'Little Owl and Moon' - inspired by Mary Oliver's poem SOLD £95
Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard by Mary Oliver

His beak could open a bottle,
and his eyes - when he lifts their soft lids -
go on reading something
just beyond your shoulder -
Blake, maybe,
or the Book of Revelation.

Never mind that he eats only
the black-smocked crickets,
and the dragonflies if they happen
to be out late over the ponds, and of course
the occasional festal mouse.
Never mind that he is only a memo
from the offices of fear -

it’s not size but surge that tells us
when we’re in touch with something real,
and when I hear him in the orchard
fluttering
down the little aluminium
ladder of his scream -
when I see his wings open, like two black ferns,

a flurry of palpitations
as cold as sleet
rackets across the marshlands
of my heart
like a wild spring day.

Somewhere in the universe,
in the gallery of important things,
the babyish owl, ruffled and rakish,
sits on its pedestal.
Dear, dark dapple of plush!
A message, reads the label,
from that mysterious conglomerate:
Oblivion and Co.
The hooked head stares
from its house of dark, feathery lace.
It could be a valentine. 
Picture
Female Blackbird SOLD £95
Inspired by my garden blackbird friend and also the poem by e e cummings...

from: 'If everything happens that can't be done'
e.e.cummings

so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough
(and birds sing sweeter
than books
tell how)
so here is away and so your is a my
(with a down
up
around again fly)
forever was never till now

... we're anything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one 
The Marvelous, Cosmic Dung Beetle!
Picture
SOLD £65 - Cosmic dung beetle
Inspired whilst listening to ‘Natural Histories’ with Brett Westwood on Radio 4... pure joy! ...
listening to an exploration of the dung beetle – in poetry, literature, music and art. 

Longer blog post here

And Sarah Watkinson’s beautiful poem x

DUNG BEETLES NAVIGATE BY STARLIGHT*
 
I track my treasure home on star beams, hide
my finds in caverns, steer them clean away,
before I’m stranded in the clueless day
with all my musky gleanings dull and dried.
Straightness is all. The constellations guide
my angled legs. The facets of each eye
lock on to glimmers. Sensed how? Who can say?
The system works for me. I’m satisfied.

I know those lines of light shine down for me,
the dung deposited on dewy ground
a providence. Through moonless dark I see
in multiple dimensions beacons round,
and every blessed night miraculously
Precipitates new turds for me to find.

*Dacke, M et al., 2012. Dung beetles use the Milky Way for orientation. Current Biology.

From Norwich Writers’ Circle Open Poetry Competition 2013 Anthology, poems selected by George Szirtes
'The Cat & the Moon' - inspired by W.B.Yeats
& my own cat Silver!
​
The Cat and the Moon 
W.B. Yeats (1919)

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
'Watership Down' by Richard Adams - Characters from the novel
Crows, Jackdaws, Ravens ...

My crows were initially inspired by the wonderful pen and ink drawings of Leonard Baskin in his illustrations for Ted Hughes' poetry collection 'Crow - The Life and Songs of the Crow', then they started to grow and change over time...

Also inspired by the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and many local jackdaws, ravens, crows and chicks - please see exhibitions for more info, artist statement and sketches.
Picture
'Essence and Form - Crow I,II,III' Triptych SOLD £225
A fascinating Australian lizard :)
Picture
SOLD £145 Moloch Horridus
Birds, chicks, cats, mice, donkeys, rabbits, woodlice, snails, beetles, grasshoppers and flies...


​
​Landscapes

 
I love doing these sketches, as the lines, markings and shadows can give such a feel for the movement of the land. They're created quite quickly and always feel very rhythmic and 'windy' to do - in both ways of reading ... :-)

W S Graham sometimes mentions the 'rainlit' blueness of the road... 'I speed along the cambered rain-blue road'...and this one, from 'A Walk to the Gulvas' with his wife and fellow poet Ness. I love these lines so much, the Scottishness and the Cornishness :-) 🌸⭐ (to keek means to peep surreptitiously) x
​
'When the light keeks out, the road
Answers and shines up blue.
I thought we might have seen
Willie Wagtail from earlier...'
The whole poem: https://www.theguardian.com/…/featuresreviews.guardianrevie…

​


​Needle-punching through handmade silk paper made from Mawata squares - spidery fine threads
This practice piece was inspired by Elizabeth Bishop's poem 'The Fish'.  When held up to the light, the image and colours almost disappear...just as the fish is returned to the sea.

© Copyright 2020 Rowena Scotney. All Rights Reserved.