I would like it noted, please, that I'm appropriately wearing a shirt made with Liberty fabric to this exhibition (my sole Liberty garment, which I was only able to afford because it was on sale 😆).
If you see this, post a bird. 🎨
The play, 'La pie voleuse' by Théodore Baudouin d'Aubigny & Louis-Charles Caigniez provided the basis for the now better known Rossini opera, 'La gazza ladra' -- 'The Thieving Magpie.'
Ink on either Arches hot pressed or Strathmore Bristol, 2015.
#PudgyHorse dons a pair of wings. 'Pegapudge', if you will.
Brown pencil on plain notebook paper, 122 × 132 mm, 2019.
This original artwork is available at auction this week, ending Friday 5th July. Link below and in profile. 🙏
Beautiful model of _Asteriornis maastrichtensis_, the 'Wonderchicken'.
From the exhibition, Birds: Beautiful and Bizarre, Natural History Museum, London.
Increasingly persuaded by the shrike's line of thought.
If we're friends prior to BSk and you've seen me going feral elsewhere recently, you already understand.
Anyway: please support David and Blue Aster and buy these snazzy buttons!
The winners of our recent bird button poll are now available in the shop! The people have spoken and the barn owl, crow, shrike, and woodcock are were the winners. 🎨🐡🪶
blueasterstudio.com/collections/...
'Well shone, Moon! Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.'
This Solstice's full moon is a gift for trotting out this quotation from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The last time that occurred has been variously reported as 1986 or 1967.
Pity I couldn't do better with the photograph.
'Never so weary, never so in woe' Illustration by Arthur Rackham of Hermia from Act 3, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ink & watercolour, 1908. A favourite piece by a favourite illustrator for a favourite line from a favourite play. Just *Sigh* Happy Midsummer.
'Then devils came from all directions and assembled under the oak.'
Illustration for the tale, 'Right and Wrong' for 'Myths and Legends of Russia,' edited by Aleksandr Afanas’ev & translated by Norbert Guterman; published by The Folio Society, 2009.
Ink on Arches HP, 170 × 240 mm.
Brontësaurus.
Ink & gouache on Strathmore grey toned paper, 151 x 147mm, 2014.
Because this seems to be doing the rounds again elsewhere. Perhaps the only piece of mine to have gone mildly viral, shunted uncredited like an orphan from workhouse to workhouse across the Internet over the years. 🤓
I met this extremely sweet kitty on an evening walk almost two weeks ago. She was very rotund and so affectionate that she purred throughout our encounter, rolled back and forth as I petted her, and even climbed onto my lap as I squatted, little caring that it was scarcely level. 1/2
When I slowly half-straightened up to encourage her to get down, she didn't budge. I'd hoped she'd leap off, but she just slid down and went plop on the ground. 😂 She was obviously very well cushioned by her fur and roundness, she didn't even bat an eyelid and never stopped purring. 2/2
Okay, one more.
She r o l l .
She was also very grubby indeed, which left no doubt as to her being an outdoor cat. 🥲
(Please keep cats inside. 🙏 I wouldn't have met her if she had been, but.)
'She threw her comb -- and there grew up a deep and terrifying forest.'
Illustration for Baba Yaga, from Myths & Legends of Russia, collected by Aleksandr Afanas’ev & translated by Norbert Guterman, published by Folio Society, 2009 (now out of print).
Ink & gouache on Arches hp, 170 × 245 mm.
Illustration for 'Two Ivans, Soldier's Sons' from Myths and Legends of Russia, collected by Alexander Afanas’ev and translated by Norbert Guterman, published by The Folio Society, 2009 (now out of print).
Ink and gouache on Arches hot pressed, 170 × 245 mm.
