Signs of Spring

I call this my gallery,  lots of different artwork leans against the window and stays there until I sort it out and file it. I painted some different objects on the brown card with my new gouache paints and the magpie moth on the little gift bag.  I have a  little painting of  this moth which I did possibly ten years ago,  it was used by me to made  lots of little cards with moving wings.  Here are nine of them together.  And the drawing at the top is from my walk on the shore, which was about two weeks ago on a lovely sunny day.

It was a fine day and although the sun was shining it was still bitterly cold.  We ventured across the shore to a favourite little island.  It takes about one hour to reach it, crossing gullies and pools of water and jumping over the many ditches across our path on the way.  I noticed all the oak leaves in the bottom of the pools, all in different shades of brown to black, blackened by the salty sea water.   I found several feathers and pieces of broken seaweed and some mermaids purses.

  When we arrived at the little island I found some pale blue shells, bleached with the sun and weather,  in the summer they are a deeper blue.  Sometimes this place is littered with them and little crabs and other smaller pink shells which look so pretty against the soft bleached sand.  I walked around, looking, taking it all in and felt how beautiful this place is.   So still and quiet, miles of empty sandy beaches across the estuary and a vast sky and the backdrop of the hills surrounding the flatness of the estuary.  I never want to leave,  it always makes me feel so calm and peaceful, so grateful to be here and surrounded with nature.  It saddens me to find evidence of the wild fowlers shooting the ducks. On the way back I like poking around amongst the tideline to see what has washed up on our shores. The wire fences are decorated with tangled  seaweeds, shredded plastic, long strings and grasses, twisted  and woven and hanging from the squared wire pattern of the fence.
Just as we were nearly home, we were lucky enough to witness three Red Kites circling above us. They are in the area but we usually only see an odd one, so this was a great sighting.

  At home I sorted through my finds and chose the dark oak leaf, a black mermaids purse and a sycamore seed and the small leaf  peeled from the sand.  They reflect the time of year, aged and textured and their dark weathered colours.  I used acrylic inks and a fine brush.  It felt like it was finished when I added the red berry.

In contrast it seems Spring is now making a big effort in my garden.  I was doing a little gardening yesterday as the sun shone and I was delighted to see the bulbs appearing and some flowering.  My beautiful Snakehead Fritillary are flowering, seems very early to see this first clump with buds,( see my blog header). I can see more drawings of them, they must be my favourite flower.

Daffodils and snowdrops and cowslips in the grass, at the bottom of my garden.

Crocus and the green leaves of the bluebells showing.

And at this time of the year the village churchyard is so lovely, a carpet of blue crocus and snowdrops, the first daffodils all signal Spring is nearly here,  although we still have snow on the hill tops.
Hope it feels like it is on the way for you too. Thank you for the lovely comments.        Millyx
(All my ipad photographs except the churchyard with my camera.)