Spirit Dolls, art and painting and workshops.

As the British summer has failed to show yet and not much is growing  in the garden. I've been creating a few more ideas for textile, hand painted spirit dolls and I have found a way to decorate them as if painting on canvas.
Keeping the shapes of the dolls simple, the patterns and symbols make them into little art sculptures and  then sewing beads, crystal chips and shells onto them for glorious texture.  They are lovely to hold!
I have had commissions to make spirit dolls for people  with their positive intent , or wishes and used many different herbs for filling, such as lavender, dried rose petals, sage, jasmine with trinkets, twigs from trees of the ogham, crystals and messages have also been hidden inside. Natural wool is also used to fill out the body of the dolls.  These spirit dolls are made unique for each person. They represent the healing that the person needs at the time. Whether it is comfort, love, strength, laughter, joy, protection or transformation to be able to move forward in their life.  They make lovely gifts for friends too.  Stars and moons make perfect dolls for children's rooms made in the same way.

Here are just a few types of spirit dolls that can be made.
I will be making more for my etsy shop soon and have finally decided to teach how to make them in a new workshop.  This will be for two days, and people have the choice to come for one day or two.

This is a doll my daughter Megan made with tiny pieces of felt hearts and flowers.

Tiny maiden dolls to carry around with you.

A spirit doll can be an amulet or a talisman. Protection or to attract positive energy. Making your own spirit dolls are so much fun and wildly creative!  Magical, sweet, intuitive and inspiring.
If you would like to come to this spirit doll workshop, I can send you the details by email.

If you already make spirit dolls, I would love to hear about the positive changes and wonderful things that have happened to you.

Celtic Festivals

We are into August already and the berries and fruit trees are ripening early this year. Soon I'll be getting ready to gather as many empty glass jars as I can for jams and pickles to last for the 4 or 6 months ahead.  Already there are black currants, plums, crab apples, tay berries and in a couple of weeks the elderberries.  Last year we make hedgerow jelly with rosehips, haw berries and black berries.  Pear and cider apple chutney, and a few others that I can't remember the wonderful things we put in. The veg garden is growing in abundance and all around us countryside is bursting with wild food for foraging.
Sitting in the garden drinking mint and lemon balm tea from the wild knot of herbs, I wonder what adventures our family blackbirds have had this summer. Always meeting me at dawn with their song and never far away during the day. Their beautiful singing balancing the energies of the new day.

Early last Spring I started painting the Celtic Festivals and have finally finished all 8. I love the colours of the seasons here in the UK. The warm bronze and rusts, golds and earthy browns of Samhain to the gentle yellows, greens and violets of Ostara.  I will soon have all of these ready for prints and I'll be making card sets for the 'Wheel of the Year'.

Inspirations and illustrations

I've been thinking lately of a book to create of the inspirations for my work.  I need your help.
What would you most like to see in this book, paintings, illustrations, fairytale, folklore, tree moons and goddesses?  Information on animal totems and meanings?  Ideas of sacred, healing gardens for your own use and meditations?  All of this and the 'wheel of the year' associations and the tree ogham.
Here are a few illustration for this book.    Looks like I'm gonna be busy for a while, but I will keep you posted on my progress.

Earth and Moon.

On the 19th March, the moon will appear unusally large in the night sky as it reaches a point of 'lunar perigee'. The moon could appear up to 30% brighter in the sky, especially when it rises on the eastern horizon at sunset.  This is called a 'Super Moon'.

It's a beautiful misty March morning. Up at 7.30am.  I sent the children off to their village school, fed the chickens,  ducks and nearly tripped over 'Bamba' my cat, on the black and white rug in the hallway. Who's silly idea was that to get a rug the same colour as the cat anyway?......Ok, so it was my idea. Bamba just seems to melt into the labyrinth of the shapes in the rug.



  Bamba sits by my feet while I make a fresh pot of coffee.He's just waiting for a sip of cream that I always save for him.  He doesn't much care for the chickens and ducks when they are freedom planning in the garden. Whenever he wants to go out on one of his adventures, he slinks away around the edges of the veranda into the bushes of rosemary and lavender, then through the ivy and tree trunks into the next garden.  Then where he goes for the next few hours, I have absolutely no idea at all! Sneaking up on white hares and black crows no doubt.

Well, I had a very late night painting the collection of fairytale pictures, so this pot of coffee is very much needed to wake my dreamy head. I could so easily go back to a warm cozy bed and carry on with the wanderings of my soul; but painting is also a wandering for the soul for me. Not asleep, but somewhere inbetween. Only a place I can go. Very much a healing place where insights and imagination meet.

'Earth and Moon'  by Amanda Clark. 

The inspiration for this painting 'Earth and Moon', was from some interesting writings that I read a few weeks ago about the moon at this time is the closesr to the earth in every 18 years or so.  This is when the magnetic pull is at it's strongest. 

Emotions too must be very strong at this time.  The interconnectedness of all the celestral and human life is truly amazing.  The insight of 'all is one' is at it's most clear.  How this effects the animal and plant kingdoms I'm not sure.

I try to plant seeds at the right time of the luna cycle.   http://www.gardeningbythemoon.com/lunarfacts.html.

I will be watching how the seeds grow in the next couple of weeks and months to see if there is any marked difference.

It is also said that the 'super moon' could sometimes create earthquakes around this time due to the magnetic pull.  New Zealand and Japan has had some devastating earthquakes and tsunami this month . Lets hope there's no more and the moon will lessen it's strength on the earth. This painting tells of the unconditional love we all must try to feel and be in hard times and to send it out to all who need it most.