Welsh Nursery Rhyme Book Illustration

Cover image by Robert Karr

Oes gafr eto? Oes heb ei godro

Ar y creigiau geirwon

Mae’r hen afr yn crwydro,

Gafr wen, wen, wen,

Ie finwen, finwen, finwen,

Foel gynffonwen, foel gynffonwen,

Ystlys wen a chynffon wen, wen, wen . . .

 I’ve never been a huge fan of facebook but it was the means by which I was invited, last Spring, to contribute an illustration to a book of Welsh Nursery Rhymes to be sold to raise funds for the St David’s Day celebrations in Los Angeles.

I've lived in Wales for just over ten years but I didn’t know that there were specifically Welsh Nursery Rhymes. Nor did I know that St David’s Day was celebrated in Los Angeles, although my overseas sales of St David’s Day greeting cards has suggested that March 1st is an important date in Welsh communities worldwide.

I chose a rhyme about goats, partly because of my brief but unforgettable experience of keeping goats when my children were young and partly because I had already been sketching goats for my ‘Chinese Year of the Goat’ greeting cards. But I think what actually decided me was that when I read the English translation, I knew instantly how I would approach the illustration.

“Is there another goat? Yes, not yet milked

On the rough rocks

The old goat is wandering

White goat

Yes,

Bald white tail, bald white tale,

White side and tail, white, white white.

And the second, third and fourth verses just substitute ‘red’, ‘black’ and ‘blue’ for ‘white’.

I challenged myself to make the coloured goats look reasonably natural by making the most of the lighting in the background landscape – eg one goat looks black because it’s silhouetted against the bright sunlight and another looks blue-ish in the shade of the tree. 

A soft pastel painting I had made previously of the Sugarloaf mountain, provided all that I needed by way of backdrop for my goats.

Which just left me with the question of what to do about the fact that the rhyme implied two people conversing. I decided on two elderly, rather Welsh-looking, country folk, possibly goatherds, although I had never been aware that goats were kept in Wales. I had thought of making their smocks a nice bright colour so that they would stand out from the background, but a google search identified that only creamy white smocks were worn in Wales.

So I was left with the decorative border to provide colour and what better than the bright red berries of the Rowan Tree or Mountain Ash, which grows plentifully in Wales! (Its Celtic name, ‘fid na ndruad’, means Wizard’s Tree.)

I had the drawing finished during the summer but, with the Surface Pattern course beginning at the end of August, it was a rush at the end to get my illustration painted in time for the December 1st deadline!

The launch will take place on Sunday, March 3rd

Click

HERE

for

DRAGONS & DAFFODILS,

St David's Day Greeting Cards & Gifts

(many with greetings in Welsh)

Daffodils 'snapped' in my garden in Wales on Feb 17th

Tree Paintings #2 Ancient Woodlands on Sugarloaf, nr Abergavenny

Sugarloaf Mountain from Abergavenny

I  have placed the two pastel painting below directly above one another as they show parts of the steep path up Sugarloaf in sequence. I almost always paint from photographs and the photos for these paintings were taken the very first time I ventured up Sugarloaf, in the late afternoon of a very hot August Day.

It was cool under the gnarled and twisted trees, which are part of an Ancient Woodland, but I think you can see how hot it was when I emerged into the open at the top of the path. There then follows a much more leisurely, flatter pathway, with sheep either side, before the really steep climb to the summit begins. Maybe you can follow the route on the profile of the mountain above?

It's possible to drive quite a lot of the way up Sugarloaf to a little carpark with  a fabulous view down over Abergavenny. But I prefer city driving to the narrow, steep and winding hills and I somehow managed to leave one of my mudflaps in a hedge up there, probably when I had to manoevre to allow a car to pass! 

I actually found being alone in the wooded part of the climb quite spooky and I much prefer to do that walk with friends or family!

The start of the climb...

Emerging out into the sunlight and a more leisurely gradient - for a while!

Sugarloaf Mountain at Sunset

Here is the 'Alpenglow 'again - this time from a cropped version of the photo my son took with his mobile phone:

 I think it has a bit more of a 'glow'!