Cian McCarthy

"May you be forever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of one's life?"
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Road in Vetheuil in Winter
🎨 Claude Monet (1879)

On a light grey pebble is a painting of a rising full moon with a silhouetted hare in front of it. The colours are monochrome, and there are lots of stars in the sky. There are silhouetted trees of either side of the hare.

Day five of #ArtAdventCalendar.

Here’s a stone I painted a reeeeeally long time ago.

Robert Frost 🖎

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ✨️

"We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair."

"Magic is believing in yourself; if you can do that, you can make anything happen."

"Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds."

🎨 J.G. Lange (1811–1887)

Give this a read...

Kenneth C. Steven

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm."
~ Aldous Huxley

The Tow Path at Argenteuil
🎨 Claude Monet (1875)

Pause a moment, and read...

• Kathleen Jamie •

"If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile ... you've beaten them."
~ George Orwell

"We all have our own life to pursue,
Our own kind of dream to be weaving,
And we all have the power
To make wishes come true,
As long as we keep believing."
~ Louisa May Alcott

The Winter Forest (1912)
🎨 Peder Mørk Mønsted

Two scenes by Richard Scarry to
gladden the hearts of all introverts 🙂

Another R.S. Thomas poem
for the 1st Week of Advent.

"You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories into life with him, he is saved for the rest of his days."
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Frost 🎨 Claude Monet

A juvenile Tawny Owl drawn in pencil on grey paper. My hand, holding a pencil, rests nearby.

Oooh, it’s time for #ArtAdventCalendar again! I haven’t made much art this year but I’ll see what I can find in the archives. 😉

Day One: A pencil drawing of a juvenile Tawny Owl, inspired by a pair of Tawny Owl fledglings which frequented our garden a few summers ago.

🙏🏻🤍✨️

When a poem becomes a prayer.

Siegfried Sassoon (1934)

🙏🏻✨️

"I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be."
~ Leo Tolstoy, 'Anna Karenina'

▪︎ Illustration by Angela Barrett ▪︎

Rounding off November with...

A.E. Housman

🙏🏻✨️

Today is the first day of Advent, and in an attempt to renew my childhood faith, I recently bought 'Frequencies of God: Walking through Advent with R.S. Thomas' by Carys Walsh, which has a poem from the great man (with subsequent commentary) for every day of this holy season.

7 years exactly since my first morning with Rua.

(Every sight of you I know
is worth the keeping.)

“It is winter in Narnia,” said Mr. Tumnus, “and has been for ever so long… always winter, but never Christmas.”

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒊𝒐𝒏, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒆
❄️ C.S. Lewis ❄️

▪︎ Illustration by Pauline Baynes ▪︎

Thank you so much, Emma! 🙏🏻✨️

C.S. Lewis on being original and finding your real self 🙏🏻🌟 (Born on this day, November 29th, 1898.)

"Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are."
~ W. B. Yeats

🎨 William Blake

Little Hedgehog - by Stirling artist (and my daughter) Charlotte Strawbridge @cstrawbridgeart.bsky.social

This... and other originals, prints, cards, etc are available to purchase from Charlotte's website, here: www.charlottestrawbridge.co.uk/art

#art #nature #wildlife #hedgehog

That (Black) Friday feeling 🙈

• John O'Donohue •

"To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do."
~ Victor Hugo

🫡