Flora and fauna 💟

I don't know where to start. This is a long story.

I have very recently relocated, and I can't lie it was a massive shock to the system. I have been able to put my finger on why, but it's not something I'll share for the moment. 

We built a tiny home on some land with the potential to become a hotspot for wildlife, I did temporarily lose sight of this whilst dealing with serious depression. The darkness was extremely heavy and hard to cope with, watching the squirrels in the garden became my first glimpse at the light. I definitely had days where all I'd do was watch them and cry. 

Nature reserve visits became frequent and for my birthday I was gifted my first pair of binoculars. I started my birding life list and watched the birds for as long as I could.

I quickly learnt about lots of different birds, their habitats and some bird song. I was already feeding the birds their seed cakes in my own garden, but I knew I needed to do more.

I have had a few blue tits recently pecking on the kitchen window whilst I'm making them, I replenish them every day.

I only have two of these types of feeders left, I repurposed a few old bowls and they're perfect for adding seed cake mix too.

This lead me to organically start creating more pieces for the wildlife out of mud. Bird seed feeders, seed cake feeders, toad abodes and many more.

As always I seem to find my passions, interests and absolutely run wild with them. I borrowed a camera and since then I've been outside every day without fail, snapping pics of the flora and fauna I stumble across. Honestly this has kick-started something, I have found a fire within once more.

 The squirrels have a special place in my heart, they're far from pests. We have to give all of the wildlife a chance to flourish and I'm really passionate about the nature in specific that seems to be overlooked. 

 Photography has become my favourite way of documenting my love of the wildlife, I feel like I owe it to them for pulling me out of the darkness. 

I also see all of my recent photography as research I'm able to translate into the mud.

Wren hanging decorations, sculpted and brought to life from a sketch inspired by a lovely little wren I encountered in the garden.

 This lead to a beautiful mug including a wonderful wren, illustrated with my own hands using a beautiful technique called Sgraffito.

A beautiful ceramic toad abode. Toads will use this in both summer and winter. It provides a cosy winter home and a cool summer home for them.

All of this quietly led me to creating a whole kiln full of illustrated work. 

Two beautiful dinner plates, absolutely full of flowers, birds, butterflies and moths.

 

A teapot, a first for me. I've not thrown a teapot yet and so I'm hugely proud of it. This one's dedicated to moths and butterflies and the plants that they love. Fingers crossed it pours well, if not it'll make an absolutely stunning bird feeder I'm sure.

A lovely selection of mugs. All have lots of lovely flowers on but each one has a different wild animal on (squirrel, blue tits, house sparrow and dunnocks) all extremely underrated in my opinion. 

Talking of bird feeders, I made this one. It has loads of lovely flowers on (pansies, primroses, ivy berries, poppies, daffodils, snowdrops etc...).

I've even dug out my linocutting tools.

A sweet moth and a few primroses, I'll have a couple of these little prints available on my website soon.

I just wanted to collate a few of these bits, I thought it may help give you a better understanding of where I'm headed and why. I hope you like this direction, I'd love to hear what you think!

Gee 💟