Fox on a Boat

Foxes in February Watercolour fox - © Kerridwen It's #FoxyFeb again on Twitter, and for me, it means more poetry, more art, and more foxy things! For tonight, a prompt from Imaginary Garden With Real Toads : Flash 55 ! I ended up not following the rhyme scheme.. it was too difficult! Maybe next time. Foxy Feb Cold bites our noses and wind tangles hair Mornings are too dark and cold But a hopeful sun seeps through the clouds An orange hue spreads across the Evening sky  And it reminds me it's Foxy Feb! The month is brighter now As I take to paper to celebrate The majestic, cunning, fiery fox.

As you may know, today is/was World Poetry Day . Around these parts, it's coming to a close, but it's not quite over yet! I've been trying to post to FB and tweet  quite regularly all day, so this post will be like a round up of poetic goodness. You may also know that I am very interested in languages and translation, so I've tried to share as many translated poems as I share English ones. (You may also know that I am attempting to self teach a few languages, but I'll talk about that in more detail a little later). I tried to make today into a little project, and though I didn't do as much as I would've liked, I'm quite happy with what I did. My idea was to bring art and poetry together with loose illustrations based on the poems I'd share. I was going to paint abstract paintings but it didn't quite work out that way. Well, enough talk! I present to you now the three poems I used as artistic inspiration: #1 - "The Wandering Guitar ...

Recently I've been painting a lot more, which I'm quite happy about, as I often end up neglecting one or more of my hobbies/ creative outlets and get caught up in Life (with a dramatic capital L). I hope to transition to inks soon - I've tried them already and enjoy using them, but haven't quite mastered the technique yet. After buying a pack of inks on sale last year, and then being gifted another pack, I feel I really should start using them!  The advantage of watercolours is that they are 'erasable' to a certain degree, so mistakes are not always the end of the world. Not so with inks! I am hoping that my extra watercolour practice will help me when I start painting with the inks again.  I have quite a few project ideas, so will definitely be updating the blog with some new paintings soon. You can check the gallery , which I try to update fairly regularly, to see all the paintings I've posted so far.

New watercolour fox for #FoxyFeb As I am writing this, I am trying not to panic about the essay I should be working on. The end of February/beginning of March is always a very busy time in students' lives. Last week was almost entirely spent on filming and editing a short film for one of my classes, and the weekend was used to catch up on coursework I didn't have time to write due to filming. So far, I've translated a cover letter into French, and written an essay debating the quote "poetry makes nothing happen" (W.H. Auden). Unfortunately, it is not over. In the past few hours, I've written a grand total of two sentences - one for my second essay, and one for my novel excerpt translation. I go to class, and nearly everyone looks completely out of it. We're all exhausted, burnt out, save a select few. (Can I really trust a student who isn't tired as the end of the semester looms over us?) I've not much writing left in me at the moment, so h...

"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." -Pablo Picasso Postcards now available for purchase.

Good day to all! (It's actually nearly 1 am here, but oh well.) I was doodling a lot yesterday, trying to get the perfect drawing (still haven't found it!) and finally felt comfortable enough to use my watercolours. This is an otter!  And it represents me! Isn't that just adorable? Unless you hate otters, in which case.. Sorry? I'm not really an otter, if that helps? (Do you like tigers?) Uh, but Kerridwen!! I hear you exclaim. Your blog is called The Tiger's Sterne! Explain please? Yes, yes I shall. You see, I have quite an unusual name. This name has a rather long meaning behind it,  it's all Welsh legends and stories - often with the name being spelt 'Ceridwen'. Well, in pretty much all version of the stories,  Ceridwen gets a bit annoyed with someone and chases him, at one point turning herself into an otter. Voila. Here's the wiki entry on Ceridwen  if you want a better explanation.

A few days ago I bought myself a nice new watercolour box - I do prefer that to the tubes, plus it's portable! I'm sort of getting back into watercolour - haven't really used it in a long time as I was using acrylics during college - so I've only painted a few easy scenes to try out some techniques. The trees were painted following a youtube video tutorial. Blue Cat Trees in a Poppy Field  Summer Tree All images  ©  Kerridwen. Do not use without permission

   ©  Kerridwen - Please do not repost or use without permission As promised, here is the first page of my book! Well, to clarify, this is a first draft of a first page of what might become a little book I might do just for fun.. So there it is, the radish that speaks Finnish.. I do like the idea so I might work out a painting schedule.. This was done in acrylics and ideally I'd like to work in watercolour, so I'll have to stock up. In the final draft I plan to have more space for words and I'll put the translation at the bottom of the page or something. I won't say anymore yet, but stay tuned for more pages and sneak peeks!

I saw a lovely oil painting of a cat the other day, it inspired me to try and paint some 'blocky cats'. I like them when they look simple. They are both watercolour paintings, but I am working on some acrylic ones, too. :) I plan to paint more often and will be adding paintings to my 'Block Cats' collection in the next weeks or so. :)