When a writer living in Castell Emlyn, home to this Isle of Albion's last known living dragon, asked for an illuminated dragon's eye in a cave to help inspire her creative flow, my inner response ~ and, more or less, my outer one ~ was "Wow! Could you have given me a more perfect commission?!"

Writer Di with her just-cooked dragon's eye

It reminded me how much I love creating artwork for others, which I go into more detail about here.

It also felt like a good introduction to my new bespoke page on returntotheway.

Here's a little video showing the how the colours shift around in the dragon's eye as the viewer moves in relation to it, due to the multi-plane technique used:

...and here's the eye in situ on Di's writing desk.

May it provide bountiful creative inspiration :)

We all have distractions to deal with in life, but living in deep countryside some of those diversions have a different quality to them. Like last week’s one, in which a posse of electrical engineers descended on Rennaldburn to replace some ancient wiring & rotten telegraph poles.

Which was all good, apart from the fact that the rotten telegraph pole featured the best three-storey starling condominium in the valley. I always loved seeing the darling starlings dive in and out with wisps of grass and fledgeling tidbits, so it was a bit heartbreaking to see them perching forlornly on the telegraph wire wondering where their home had gone.

There was only one thing to do: re-erect the rotten pole. This proved to be quite a mission, and after it was done I realised the next task at hand was to create some heavy-duty cat protection around it to make sure Tashi didn’t think I’d just created him a handy starling snack-bar.

Finally it was done. The only question was, would the starlings accept their new home being a few feet further West and about half as high as it had been?

It didn’t take them long to settle back in again…even though they were accompanied this time by a throng of smaller birds who love hanging out on the bizarre construction beneath the nest.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll do some artwork…

This Samhain new moon, as our ancestors are nearer the forefront of our awareness, here's a small tale about a gravestone I made my Great Aunt Ecila this Summer.

She died forty years ago, but ~ having matter-of-factly donated her body to science ~ never had a funeral or grave...and the time felt right for my mother and myself to redress the balance. (Since I carved a stone in memory of my father a couple of years ago, I'm quite the expert now ;)

I decided to try a multimedia offering this time, with a glass rosy cross inset into the sandstone, along with a little metal Scotty dog broach...and we made the pilgrimage down to North Curry, Somerset to sneak it into the family plot.

There we stayed with a family friend who had one of those wild, rambling and chaotically glorious gardens that have a timeless quality to them ~ you could imagine it being the same in a medieval or victorian age.

(The same could be said for many interior views, such as this nook, ode to glass and dragons :)

I spent much of my time filming the abundance of winged creatures who made their home there and on the local waterways...

These sun-infused interactions became this little video, made as an offering to Aunt Ecila ~ and all our relations who are now more winged than earthbound.

loving daily offerings...

(this one by Ketut Sumiarti, our homestay hostess. Here's the link if you ever want to stay with a lovely family high in Bali's mountains :)

shrines by every doorway...

a cats-only island...

painting with Mada, Ketut, Wili & Putu...

...and misty mountains beneath us as we flew North again.

Sometimes, the inner truth of a journey unfolds after returning home once more...and, with dreams of flying turtles and extravagantly coloured butterflies, Bali is still working its magic on us as we walk by Rennaldburn's clear waters and frosted swathes of snowdrops. Now is time to get creating again :)

Mada swinging on a vine at sunset

It's been a long time since I've had a guest post on returntotheway...nearly two years ago, when Cathy van Hoppe shared sketches for a winter's tale.

Here's a recent work coming into being; midnight magic, kinship and starlight born from silence and winter stillness.

It's been a long time since my last blog post. And, for those kind souls who read this blog regularly I am truly apologetic for vanishing without explanation.

Life has its seasons I guess and sometimes a very harsh Winter comes our way. It forces a kind of hibernation, a withdrawal from our normal lives. It can be a very testing time - providing little in the way of nourishment and using up all your reserves. Survival depends on something beyond our control and a kind of surrender begins to develop.

And Silence swam as starlight between the trees