I’ve just spent a lazy hour sitting in the shade at the studio looking at what was going on and watching the swallows swoop and dive around me.
These small, elegant black and white birds arrived about three weeks ago, (or maybe a bit longer – I can’t remember exactly) and they will be here now for the rest of the summer.
Swallows feed on the wing and their flight patterns are mesmerising as they hunt for insects. So of course I grabbed a pencil and started to draw – flight path, over flight path, following their movements with my eyes.
Another page and the side of a graphite stick varied the marks,
and on further page a few more jottings.
The words read:
Swallows fly past
Now high
Now low
A glide and then a short flap of wings.
Rise higher and another glide.
A sudden, flutter and turn, flutter and turn – switchback
Falling – wings back – they chirrup.
From the left a straight, confident path,
swift and low
to rest on the far bank.
I have used the swooping shapes of a swallow’s flight in my work before but it is always a pleasure to have another look.
Finally, on another note, you may be interested to know that I am giving an online workshop for TextileArtist.org as part of their new TextileArtist.org Stitch Club. The workshop starts next week and in it I talk about how objects can tell a story and take you through the processes I use for making small containers for some objects that you have chosen yourself. I think the last day for registration is tomorrow!
