Hello everyone! Sorry I've been a bit quiet online lately - I've been working away diligently behind the scenes, despite the lethargy and general aversion to early mornings that I suffer from in winter. It's something I struggle with year after year, and I tend to find that my productiveness declines hugely towards Christmas, much to my annoyance. I don't think of myself as a lazy person (far from it!) and not having a project to work on makes me feel miserable. So, I've been doing my best to push through it this year, with the help of good company and a lengthy walk at the top of the day to help me catch as many rays as is available this time of year.
So it is with huge pleasure that I present to you my two newest pictures - which will also be the designs on my Christmas cards this year. I had a bit of an inspiration visit to the various Christmas stores available in London (most have been open since september or even august - we like to get started early round here!) and found that as well as the usual holly and mistletoe, there were lots of autumnal subjects beginning to seep into the Christmas theme - items such as toadstools, acorns and turning leaves were repeatedly featured as ornaments. I love the warm colours of autumn, with the rich reds and oranges coupled with gold and mossy green, so decided to have an autumn theme in my cards this year.
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| A Dunnock (formerly known as the Hedge Sparrow) rootling about in the leaf litter under a hawthorn bush. I featured this rather unremarkable bird on my cards in honour of the little Dunnock I often see creeping about my patio and under the bench in my garden! |
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| One of our most splendid winter visitors - Waxwings love to feed on the hips (fruit) of roses. |
It was a wonderful subject to work on and there were a lot of ideas that I liked, but in the end I decided that the strongest compositions were the two above. I could have made lots more card designs, but alas, there are other projects that require my attention! I am hoping to design more cards next year, so that it can be a collection that is added to and updated regularly with new work. At any rate, I hope you enjoy these two, the cards should be available to purchase in my Etsy shop by the end of the week.
As always, thanks so much for reading!
Emma x
Love the Dunnock design... why is he no longer referred to as a Hedge Sparrow?! Curious.
ReplyDeleteHi Charis,
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad you enjoy the Dunnock, thank you so much!
I think the name was changed because to call the bird a Hedge Sparrow would suggest that the species is biologically related to House Sparrows and Tree Sparrows - which it isn't, it's from a completely different family despite its similar colouring. I suppose they just wanted to clear up the confusion.
Hope that answers your question :)