Bees, Blossom and a Fat Baby Bird.

I am busy working away on some prints and other things but last week I saw the first bees in the Garden for 2015.  

9th Feb: First Bees

I have a small winter honey suckle outside the kitchen door and 4 honey bees were backwards and forwards on a sunny warm afternoon. Huraahhhhh.. It is cause for much rejoicing and worthy of recording.

And then here is the first blossom from our Bird Cherry Trees which I will be making some work about this year. We have been chopping the trees back and I had brought a twig inside to hopefully draw. One week later and it is in bloom. The trees outside are poised…

On Saturday we went into Cambridge and had  look round the fascinating Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. As well as an excellent small print show (see The Power of Paper), the small museum is stuffed with fascinating and very sketch-able things. Favourite on Saturday was the exquisite baby bird carving. It does not have a label but is in a case which invites the viewer to make up their own minds about the possible story behind the enigmatic objects it contains. It looks Japanese in its elegant simplicity.

A5 sketchbook, pencil

This gorgeous little carving with its pleasing curves and that big wide baby bird mouth reminded me so much of the baby robins we see in the spring.  It’s the sort of thing you long to pick up and hold in your hand.  There was also something of a winged flying saucer about it and it sparked an old memory of those sherbet flying saucer sweets, from a time when day-glow rice paper and sickly sherbet seemed like a good idea. Hmm.. not much has changed then...

Anyway it has all made Spring seem not too far away now !