Thursday 8 May 2008

Sunlight on windows and water

THE SUNSHINE has been glorious these last few days and Tui and I have been out delighting in it. Down the lane a bit and round the corner is the place where our horsebox is parked, and there we've been spending our days toasting our noses and getting sawdust-sweaty working on our home on wheels. We've been up rickety ladders adding the first Very Exciting Thing to the lovely Bedford ~ a round window that hobbits would be proud of! It's a swiveling-opening delight which we put four quarters of glass into and now it lets lovely sunlight into the bedroom-quarters to be. And since there are no hobbits about, we're being very proud of it ourselves!
And then after a cup of coffee on the tailgate I leave Tui to the sanding and climb down the steep hill to the stream below to sit and paint while the swallows swoop happily past almost skimming the surface of the water and an interested mother sheep and her two stripey-legged lambkins visit me closeby.
Yesterday I fell asleep in the heat of the afternoon and woke with my head in the oil paints!
So today I ventured down there with a pencil and sketchpad instead to draw imagined interiors for our home-to-be. And when I wasn't drawing, I sat by that cold Scottish splashing rushing stream in the hot May sun and read a frosty arctic tale of hot air balloons and bears in Philip Pullman's newest book Once Upon a Time in the North, featuring lovely little wood engravings by John Lawrence.

8 comments:

Erica-Jane said...

Hi Rima!

I'm so sorry to hear that the techy men can't retrieve your files :0(
Bum!
I can't actually see any of your pictures tonight, ( my lap top is playing silly buggers! It's my computer, not yours!) So I'll pop back again soon to have a look-see :0)
Glad the sun is shining up there!

Love from the attic
xoxo

mama p said...

Yay! for lovely windows, sun, and splashy water. Thanks for taking us along. :)

Shelley Noble said...

Holy cow, Rima, you leave nearly in Halfland! Those shots! I hope it's alright if looking at them helps me create my little stream? And that you won't be insulted if the plein air painter in it has paint in her hair? (She's NOT you though, that would be an altogether different creation!) It's just that reading about you waking up with your head in the oil paints is so thrillingly poetic and inspiring.

A Rima story book to be made of it I hope?

The window is beautiful too.

Shelley Noble said...

I must have been talking whilst typing.... I meant to write that you and Tui practically LIVE in a world much like the one I'm making here in miniature in the middle of my workshop!

Anonymous said...

Lovely round window! We've got a round window in our kitchen - not quite as magical looking though! What a lovely tranquil scene, I feel transported, thankyou! :)

d. moll, l.ac. said...

The round window is especially nice, I really like the swivel feature. Paint in your hair? The Art Spirits have marked you as one of their own.......

Gypsy Root said...

Your story and pictures that follow are a delight.
I want to dip my feet in the water and collect the stones in the stream.

Jacobo Muñiz said...

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Your world is wonderful and plenty of magic. My dreams made real.