My Celtic collared dove art 'Collared Doves in Blossom' together with a look at dove symbolism, myth and meaning...

The dove is one of our most beloved birds and a universally-recognised symbol of peace, love, and harmony.

There are actually many types of dove and in my artwork, I’ve chosen to show collared doves as we have a pair we often see perched on our chimney and roof.

They are quite a favourite bird of mine as we used to have a pair in my childhood garden. My mum told me that they were rare and we were lucky to have them, so I always thought of them as quite special.

Collared doves were certainly a rare bird in Britain when my mum was a child as they originally hail from the Balkans, Turkey, and Asia – and only bred in Britain for the first time in 1955. They spread across the country naturally and are now very common in Britain.

Young collared doves will fly up to 600km, usually in a north-westerly direction, from their birthplace – so we can see how so many have ended up in Britain.

My Celtic Moths art - plus a dive into moth meaning, symbolism and folklore to explore the place that moths hold in our understanding...

Moths, often seen as ‘night butterflies’ are actually a cousin of the butterfly. They are of the same scientific classification ‘lepidoptera’ but are distinctively different species.

Although most moths do fly by night, many are seen during the day and may be mistaken for butterflies.

Moths may be as old as 190 million years old – more ancient than butterflies!

The easiest way to tell a butterfly from a moth in most cases is that the moth folds its wings flat over its body when at rest, whereas the butterfly folds its wings up over its back.

The moth also usually has feathery antennae which the butterfly does not. Moths pupate in cocoons of silk while butterflies pupate in a hard, smooth chrysalis.
​

In this drawing lesson, we’ll start to explore how the marks you make on your page when drawing will create the texture and form of your subject.

This is important as it helps you to show something about the qualities of what you’re drawing – to describe the details and also the texture and the form itself.
​
In this lesson:

• we’ll first take a look at why the marks we make as we draw are so important
• we’ll look at how to use the direction of our marks to give information about the form of what we’re drawing
• we’ll look at drawing close up details
• we’ll look at drawing textures
• we’ll put it all together in a still-life drawing practice

My colourful Celtic Magpies & Magnolia art, plus a dive into magpie superstition, myth and meaning...

Beautiful black and white birds that are accompanied by a whole host of superstitions and meanings…

Here’s what you need to know about magpie superstitions, myth, folklore and meaning…
​
The magpie is a handsome and extremely intelligent bird – and one that I feel suffers a lot in our perception from the myths, folklore and superstitions that surround this highly unusual bird.

The bird, Pica pica (the Eurasian magpie) was originally known, from at least as early as the 13th century) as the ‘pie’ – thought to mean ‘pointed’ referring either to its pointed beak or tail.

It was colloquially known as ‘Maggie Pie’ – it was quite common to give a proper name to a bird (for example Jenny Wren, Jack Daw, Robin Redbreast). Maggie is a diminutive of Margaret which was sometimes used to mean a woman (generic woman) – supposedly because the chattering of the Maggie Pie sounds like the conversation of women.

Now we know the term ‘pied’ as meaning black and white. But it’s thought that this came from the black and white plumage of the magpie and was then used to refer to other birds with similar ‘pied’ colouring.

My beautiful Brown Bear Celtic art - available as art prints, T-shirts, homeware, accessories and more...

I love bears, and after creating my Celtic Bear art and researching our myths and folklore around bears for the blog post accompanying that artwork, I still wanted to create another brown bear artwork, one with a lovely bear face...

​So I set to work adapting a drawing I'd done a several months ago, digitising it, and making it into a digital artwork ready to be printed onto canvases, giclee prints, cushions, throw blankets, journals, mugs and more...

Here's a peek behind the scenes of my creative process.... click on the images to see them larger!

Colourful Goldfinches & Thistles Celtic art plus a look at the symbolism and meaning of goldfinches and thistles...

A look at butterfly meaning, myth & folklore with a particular focus on Celtic butterfly meaning and tales - all illustrated by my Celtic butterfly art, and unveiling my newest butterflies artwork...

I've been really busy recently creating lots of butterfly artworks (you can see the first 4 here, plus two others here and here - but I'll also be sharing them again in this post, too)....

But I realised I hadn't stopped to take a look at the myth and meaning of butterflies, especially in the Celtic world, as butterflies do have a particular meaning and importance in Celtic tradition...

So let's take dip into our history and understanding of Celtic butterfly meaning, plus butterfly myths and meanings from across the world - and I'll share my new Celtic butterflies artwork, which I created from the individual butterflies I drew for each of the other artworks, which I thought would all look lovely in one piece, together (see above or just below, showing detail from the artwork)...

Celtic alder art and Celtic Tree Calendar art - plus a little look at the myth, history and meaning of the alder tree...

The English word ‘alder’ is thought to come from the Old German workd ‘elawer’ meaning ‘reddish’ – the white wood inside the alder tree turns red when cut and the catkins of the alder are a purplish-red.
​
The Anglo-Saxon word for alder is ‘alr’ (linked to the Norse word ‘olr’). The Gaelic ogham word for alder is ‘fearn’ linked to the Welsh ‘gwern’. More about the meaning of ‘fearn’ later…

Pretty tortoiseshell butterflies against an intricate knotwork of Celtic spirals and swirls...

Feeling inspired by Medieval illuminated manuscripts, and following my recent 'Blue Butterflies Celtic Knotwork' artwork, I decided to work on a piece with tortoiseshell butterflies, which I think are one of our prettiest butterflies...

I create my pieces digitally from elements that I've hand-drawn individually - I scan them into the computer and put them together in Adobe Illustrator - here's how it went...