Here is the second spell in my new Everyday Magic Collection. Paintings to reawaken your sense of wonder and enrich your life.
Use this painting to create a station for contemplation in your home. A daily check-in to help you connect to something deeper, more powerful and wise within yourself that gets drowned out in the daily grind.
This is a “Spell for Sorrow”. 8 powerful elements to soothe and support you through difficult times. On the coloured ground, an explosion of deep blues and pinks, paint and pigment, largely created by serendipity, come controlled observational studies, painted from life. Here’s a chance to lean into the ache and feel what message it has for you.
5 minute video, showing the creation of this artwork from start to finish. --->
The large Goat Moth is (like all the moths) painted at its actual size. It is nationally scarce, overwintering 3 or 4 times as a larva before developing into a moth. Like many moths it cannot feed as an adult. I found a live Goat Moth that inspired this choice, but this specimen was drawn in Cambridge Museum of Zoology (read more here).
The badger skull was a loan from a local friend. Badgers, like sorrow itself can be incredibly destructive. The UK’s largest predator, they are persecuted, but despite their size, they are shy and elusive in their nocturnal pursuits.
The pink flower is Knapwort. A wild herb is famous for taking away black and blue marks out of the skin. Lessening your suffering. You can spot this growing wild at field edges and on neglected ground.
The blackthorn (Sloe) twig in bud heralds the coming of spring and brighter days. Its early blossom is an essential source of nectar. The massive sharp thorns along its branches are traditionally associated with bad luck, sorrow and hardship. The moths all feed on blackthorn, the gingery striped Lackey Moth, the Pale Eggar Moth, the male with his impressive antenna and the December Moth. Impossibly fluffy like a teddy bear, seldom seen and as its name suggests active at the bleakest time of the year.
The fossil, drawn on location in the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences (read more here) is a Common Lamp Shell. A Brachiopod commonly known as lamp shells because they resemble early Roman oil lamps. A glimmer of light at the darkest of times.
The feather, found on a walk comes from another nocturnal creature. The tawny owl. Regarded as both wise and a bringer of death by the Celts. Her Gaelic name “cailleach-oidhche” is a direct reference to the Celtic Goddess of Death (The Cailleach Bheur), the blue-faced crone of winter and death.
Finally the complex lace, drawn from 16th Century Italian Cutwork, where threads are removed from a strip of linen individually and sewn to secure them. This little piece represents hours of intricate work, largely performed by women once so important for status and now an obsolete practice.
There are still 2 paintings left to be released in this series. My subscribers get exclusive 48hr access. To be the first in line and enter to win a print CLICK HERE.
