 |
The busy lizzies and petunias in the hanging baskets are looking
decidedly lacklustre and the lobelia fizzled out weeks ago but the
scarlet geraniums, which Barbara has transferred
to terracotta pots, go on flowering on the patio.
 A
three quarter full yellow moon rises behind the branches of an ash
in the wood, and at first I think it's a light in a house across
the valley, glimpsed through the leaves, as if I was seeing the
flashing lights of a party. Soon it has risen clear of the tree.
|
 Bassets
That pot of geraniums reminds me of my freelance days, at least 15 years
ago. At that time I worked through an artists' agent who specialised in
wildlife art. Towards the end of the 80s there were fewer opportunities
for natural history illustration but my agent had some success in finding
his artists commissions for collector plates.
Give it a try, he suggested; he had a client who was considering a series
featuring different kinds of puppies. Cute isn't me but with the prospect
of a down payment plus royalties if the series proved a best seller I
thought it was worth a try.
Here's a detail from my rough, which was in pencil, pen and ink and watercolour.
 The
best part about this job was meeting and photographing a trio of basset
pups out Pickering way. They were such attractive subjects and I like
plates, use them every day, but to put the pups into a circular design
with cuteness uppermost in my mind proved an impossibility and my design
was rejected.
The lugubrious pup (left) is a detail from my first attempt
at the final artwork. It's in acrylic on cartridge paper which I stretched
on a large board.
 As
any archaeologist will tell you, potsherds have a long, long life. Out
of all my work, I guess it's the drawings that were transferred to ceramics
which will last the longest.
Potsherds and Posterity
I have a image of our sun going nova, the Earth being shattered into
cosmic debris and, somewhere out there, a detail from one of my drawings,
forever preserved on a ceramic fragment, drifting aimlessly through space.
Well, if that does happen, it won't be these basset pups who feature
in some alien space academy museum, eons in the future.
Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk
|
