The snores of hedgehogs. This line is taken from The Living Countryside, a 1980s wildlife magazine, issues of which were always scattered around my home growing up.A little drawing I did last year and which features on the 2023 Klee Wallplanner for the days surrounding Christmas.November 2023 Winter hillOctober 2023 A pumpkin carriageSeptember 2023 Meadow. A Tortoiseshell Butterfly flies over a summer meadow with Harebell, bright gold Lady's Bedstraw, Bush Vetch, Queen Anne's Lace, Red Clover, Dandelion, Self-Heal, Pyramidal Orchid, Field Scabious, Germander Speedwell and Herb Robert. I based this meadow on a hill in Tymon Park in Dublin.
I drew this picture for a school booklet, Bright Start, produced by Eireamhóin.
Peatlands Wallplanner. I designed this for Klee Paper (ecoland.com) who produce a wallplanner each year. I don't sell these but you can buy them from Klee here, and also order them in bulk with your organisation's logo: https://ecoland.com/2/384/#PROD3703
The theme was the flora and fauna of Irish bogs. As always, it was a pleasure to research the wildlife of a particular ecosystem.
August 2023 Viviparous Lizard, or Common Lizard. The only reptile native to Ireland, these lizards are to be found in many habitats, from gardens to peat bogs. They are tiny, about the thickness of a pencil. As with other tiny creatures, looking closely at them draws us into another world, where moss forms bushes and twigs become small trees. A fragment of fallen bark is a craggy outcrop, and on it the little lizard has become a dragon, surveying its kingdom with a genial face.
May 2023
Sundews. These beautiful plants live on bogs. They are carnivorous and feast on unwary insects. The sweet, sticky droplets that lure and trap their prey also catch the sunlight, and often makes their scarlet tipped leaves glitter like rubies.Bog asphodel, cross-leaved heath, and a Large Heath butterfly.The brown female hen harrier flies with her blue-grey mate over moorland.
April 2023
An Irish hare among heather, bog-cotton and toad rushes.A frog leaps over some sphagnum moss. Sphagnum is the building material of bogs. As new moss grows on top of old, the moss beneath slowly transforms into peat. Sphagnum grows bog at a rate of one millimetre depth a year. Peat only a metre deep was formed around the time of the Vikings.
March 2023
Marsh Fritillary and Devil's Bit Scabious. The Marsh Fritillary is the only insect in Ireland which is legally protected. This beautiful butterfly lays its tiny yellow eggs on the foliage of the Devil's Bit Scabious, which is so named because its root was supposed to have been bitten off by the devil.The Diving-Bell Spider creates a bubble for itself underwater, where it can sit breathing air and watching potential prey swim by. The bubbles are very beautiful, as is the spider itself - often a rich reddish brown with a velvety abdomen. I've always found the idea of them mysterious and romantic. Their genus name Argyroneta translates as 'spinner of silver'.The moon over Carlingford Lough.
February 2023
One of our two pet greyhounds basking in the sun. Our other greyhound is poking her snout out from the grass further down the garden.
This was based on a Dublin park. Three young boys play football after school on a Spring evening.
January 2023
I based this on a photo I took of my husband and one of our dogs, last summer. Greyhounds are very affectionate and this one likes nothing better than to lie beside you on the sofa.Daffodil Park. I based this on a park in Crumlin which has large daffodil beds in Spring. Moonlit Park. I based this on another part of the same Crumlin park. In winter the lights from surrounding houses and the street peek through the bare trees.Pigeons Flying. One of my favourite things is to watch a flock of pigeons, glittering white and grey against the sky, shining like a shoal of fish. I haven't managed to paint them like that yet, but here they are silhouetted against a bright early Spring sky.
