Drawing and Embroidery

I started a drawing. I continued some embroidery. D is for Drowning. I sketched out my next embroidery: E is for Exsanguination.

Sketches

Some Sketches

Just some sketches today. Ideas. The first two sketches are on the theme of the Colt Pixy, a malicious spirit that whinnies in the deep forests and bogs, luring travelers to their doom, thinking they are recovering  a lost pony.

The bottom sketch is a preliminary for Fanny Adams. A young girl very brutally murdered in 1867 and the curious genesis of the phrase "Sweet Fanny Adams!". The Story of Sweet Fanny Adams for your edification.

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit

Something vague about rabbits....
I return to rabbits with some frequency. They are my artistic totem animal, a bit of a theme.
I had two monstrous Dutch rabbits when I was young, and though I thought they were lovely animals and very soft, I didn't think they were very good pets. They never look at you, of course, their eyes are on either side of their head which made them hard to relate to.
Because I lived in a very rural area, we could just let our rabbits go during the day, and I would have to catch them and put them back in the hutch at night. I would have to chase them because I was the smallest and quickest. I could chase them under the hedges. It was just like Alice in Wonderland, except with lots of bloody scratches and pokes in the eyes with sharp sticks. Here is a sampling of my rabbit-centric work.

Alice and the Rabbits

The Witch of Beaulieu

Blue Willow Rabbit Pillow

The Automaton Magician and His Rabbit Assistant

The Scold's Bridle

Widows

 I was reading about St. Stephen being the patron saint of widows. Also St. Stephen is depicted as a youthful saint sometimes holding a small church. I have been goofing on the theme with some little sketches. Nothing has firmed up yet. St. Stephen's Day is traditionally (until the eighteenth century) the day to bleed horses for their health after running them a good distance, but that seems like a separate painting altogether.

Here is a pretty sunset from my back window.

All in the Well

Inspired by an entry in W.C. Hazlitt's Dictionary of Faiths and Folklore for a children's game called "All in the Well" but no description is given. I've made up a campy, macabre little game that involves quarry in a rabbits mask getting sacrificed to a tentacled thing that lives in a wishing well.
Hopefully, it will be done in another day or so.

All in the Well

Painting of the mysterious children's game called "All in the Well". I've taken some fantastic liberties with a game I assume was some variation of hide and seek. I've turned it into a human sacrifice to the tentacled creature that lives in this well. I'm just getting to the juicy tentacles. What fun!

All in the Well

I've been reading W.C. Hazlitt's Dictionary of Faiths and Folklore and there is an entry for a children's game called "All in the Well" but no description is given. So I've had a pretty good time guessing what kind of game this would be. I've settled on depicting sort of a campy, kitschy picture of three girls bringing a fourth girl in a rabbit mask as the quarry for this tentacled thing that resides in the well.

All in the Well

I've been reading W.C. Hazlitt's Dictionary of Faiths and Folklore and there is an entry for a children's game called "All in the Well" but no description is given. So I've had a pretty good time guessing what kind of game this would be. I've settled on depicting sort of a campy, kitschy picture of three girls bringing a fourth girl in a rabbit mask as the quarry for this tentacled thing that resides in the well. A little bit of campy horror fun, why not?

Arval Bread

Arval bread was the traditional bread eaten at funerals in Northern England. Here I am noodling about with the idea.
Here is a link to another post about this funeral bread tradition. The Old Foodie's Arval Bread

The Bawming of Appleton Thorn

So there is an event in Cheshire England where people adorn a a hawthorn tree with ribbons. This decorating is called "bawming". "Bawming the Thorn" occurs on the Saturday nearest to Midsummer’s Day.
According to legend, the hawthorn at Appleton Thorn grew from a cutting of the Holy Thorn at Glastonbury which was itself said to have sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, the man who arranged for Jesus's burial after the Crucifixion.
This centuries old tradition was nearly forgotten, but then revived 1n 1967.
The tree in real life is surrounded by sidewalk, and of course there would really be more people attending this village festival.
My imaginary Bawming of Appleton Thorn features only two girls in period dress. Sort of looking like they were caught in the act of ribboning this tree.  And now that I look at it, he seems a jolly, fat yodeling tree, doesn't he?

Sketches for St. Lucy

Saint Lucy or Lucia was a wealthy Christian martyr now venerated as a saint. She continued to speak against her accusers even when they pierced her throat with a dagger. She is the patron saint of the blind. An apocryphal story claims that she tore our her own eyes and gave them to a suitor who said he admired them, so that the rest of her might live unto God. Her name comes from lux, meaning light and her day was commonly described as the shortest day of the year. She is particularly celebrated in Scandinavian countries because of their cold dark winters. Celebrants of her day wear wreaths of candles on their head.

I am working on a sketch here combining some of my favorite elements of Saint Lucy's story. There were some things I left out, like, how she couldn't be moved by a thousand yoke of oxen. Who has time to paint a thousand yoke of oxen?

Sketchbook

 I've been working up a sketch based on some knowledge I've come across in a book of superstitions and folklore. It says that three spiders were worn about the neck in medieval through enlightenment times to cure an ague. It doesn't say that the spiders had to be dead, so that's what I've been running with. How would you wear three live spiders on your neck? The top sketch seems to have a very John Tenniel, Alice in Wonderland, flavor to it. The lower picture also has some fantastical neck stretching and even some bending. But so far, the upper picture is more interesting.

 "All Fours" is a game for entertaining children, in medieval times as now, where the adult gets on the floor and the children ride around on his or her back. I've tried to depict this in an exaggerated way. The adult looks pretty uncomfortable, but I think I could do better.

Sketch Book

Various and sundry. A few more persons with a stick pony, birds with people faces, a thin man holding a boar's head. Lots of things rattling around, but nothing really popping out at me at the moment.

Sketch Book

What's going on in my old noodle? Well, here are some views of my sketchbook. I got stuck for a while on the idea of someone riding a toy pony.