A while back I wrote a blog about starting to learn about digital painting, a new medium for me. In July I completed my first fully digital painting, Lady of Stars. (ooh, better qualify that...what I mean is this is my first completed digital painting after several weeks of experiments and doodlings learning how to control my digital pen tablet!) It wasn't easy, I had to learn a lot of new things and was often saved from confusion by my teenage son - young folk seem to understand technology more easily than I! I did enjoy it, but traditional media are still my favourite. While I was working on this image I woke one night thinking there was a pale ghostly form standing next to my bed, but it was probably a dream... I made up a short description to go with her.

"There is a planet many light years distant which orbits a blue-white sun. The life forms which inhabit the planet are composed of a crystalline material like spun glass but flexible, and because gravity is weak on the planet many of them grow extenuated in form."

A couple of weeks ago I became almost obsessed with an image I had painted ten years ago of an old cottage I lived in at one time. I dug out old photos of the place and felt for some reason compelled to paint a new version based on the flower garden I had grown there....as an artist these compulsions to paint images do occur for no 'apparent' reason... inspiration is often a mystery....but I've just discovered from browsing here on Enchanted Folk (thanks to one of Dreamdeer's fascinating blogs) that the compulsion to paint the new image of that cottage garden came to me around the night of the Perseids (of which fact I was unaware at the time, being somewhat ditzy at times these days!)

The original painting from 1998 was called "The Visitor" and depicted a star-being hovering above the cottage. The new version I painted at the time of the Perseids a couple of weeks ago is called "The Stars Came to Dance with the Flowers", a title I now realise was fitting with the meteors or 'shooting stars' of the Perseids which was occurring around then....though I was unwitting of that fact at the time, maybe some starry influence was filtering through. I did make an entry in my diary about vivid dreams...

Here are thumbnails of the two paintings below (click them to see larger views). The first is "The Visitor" painted in 1998, the second is "The Stars Came to Dance with the Flowers" painted around the night of the Perseids (August 2008).

A short story behind "The Visitor" - This is a mixed media painting from 1998 (watercolour, collaged tissue and inks). Original sold. It's based on a lovely old cottage I once lived in high on a forested hill (Highlands of Scotland)...it was really more of a romantic idea than actually idyllic : in winter it was literally freezing with ice on the inside of the window panes until I got the hearth cleaned and lit, water puddled up through the kitchen floor from the hillside behind and there was an inch gap under the ancient door. Between November-April thermal underwear was a necessity. But I still loved it there and have fond memories of the place. I was there for only a year but had to move when the owner wanted to renovate.

The story behind this image...one day I was typing on an electric typewriter (I had no computer in those days) when suddenly it started to hum louder and louder, the small LCD screen grew brighter and brighter and I quickly switched everything off....puzzled, and having heard stories of strange sightings of UFOs over that hillside, I went outside to see whether there was something hovering overhead!! (but nothing there). I even phoned the electric company to ask whether there was some problem with power surges (they'd heard of none).

I painted The Visitor ten years ago, but as I said felt inspired a couple of weeks ago to paint another image about the cottage based on the flower garden I grew there. The cottage was situated high on a forested hillside in the Scottish Highlands...standing in the garden felt almost as if you were floating above the valley on a carpet of flowers....and so a couple of weeks ago maybe the Stars did come to dance with the Flowers....

Sometimes, when I am feeling blue, a variety of humorous Faerie characters pop into my mind. They like to wear theatrical costumes, and pose in comical positions as if they are trying to cheer me up. As I doodle them in my sketchbook I can't help but giggle and smile. Here are two of them which I have recently put into one of my Moss Forest/Garden settings.

Despite wearing genteel clothes they do not take this too seriously...if you click to see the larger image you may notice that one stockinged foot of the lady and the hem of her dress is moss-stained. This is often the state of my own clothes, knees and elbows grass-stained and clothes peppered with burrs from crawling through undergrowth in the garden to peek into tiny secret worlds...

I've just heard that two of my paintings have been included in Linda Ravenscrofts' new book "How to Draw and Paint Fairyland" and that the book is now available. I can't wait to see it! I'm sure it is an absolutely fabulous book, as  Linda's artwork is wonderful and fantastic!!

I've also been asked for images for a new book about contemporary illustration due out next year.  I've sent off the CD of those initially selected by the author and it's all now in the editing process - will post further details when I hear whether any of mine have been accepted.

The summer has sped so quickly...I haven't got around to blogging much. The weather being far better than last year I've been outside sketching a lot more in the surrounding fields and forests. My son and I have been exploring the forestry tracks by bicycle and found a new site of  Ringlet butterflies which was a new record for Highlands of Scotland in the butterfly atlas database. Here's a photo I took of it - a bit out of focus as the butterfly was quite flighty and I had to get right down among the tall grass heads despite hayfever!, but it was a lovely delicate creature.

Have you ever planted a moss garden? It's something I used to do as a child and then later with my son when he was small....he's taller than me now but we still have a couple of moss gardens outside inhabited by assorted miniature dinosaurs, snakes and lizards (all plastic, but you never know! A few years ago he did catch sight of a rather large lizardy leg disappearing into our coal shed....)

Moss gardens don't need much space and are quite fascinating, there are many species of moss.  Of course, you may not wish to uproot moss which is already growing happily but I've found that birds are always digging it up in search of insects, and it's fairly easy to find uprooted clumps needing a new home! You can use a seed tray, sprinkle a little soil and arrange a few stones in it  and then plant your moss. Mosses don't need deep soil and will grow even on stones and walls. Just remember to sprinkle with water fairly often if the weather is dry as moss likes to be damp.

I love looking at the miniature landscapes among "moss forests" and often use these forms in my artwork. Here's one of my recent fairy images "In the Moss Garden"...I was delighted that when I submitted this image recently to Epilogue.net  it was chosen as an Editor's Pick.