The Language of Liquid

Evening. Time settles, quiet in the heart, but outside a storm builds. The day was spent inside, working steadily, irritated that even when away from the computer and emails the phone rang, and rang. But work was done, real work, at the drawing board.

This one began with a desire to somehow paint that thick muscled tail of an otter. This one began with a sketch.

Small in the sketchbook, this was a sketch like a map from the mind, to see how the piece would fit the page. Sometimes sketches can be this simple, other times they work themselves up to be more.

This one needed the work to be done fresh, onto the page.

Next came ink and water from the river at Abermawr, a mixture of ground ink and the bottled calligraphy ink that has a texture that eats light.

Next came words, and round and round the words I went, with the names of the otter. And still I only settled them as I wrote, one letter at a time.

It’s such a curious way to write this, breaking the language right down to its elements and things begin to unravel and you question every letter, every spelling.

I’ve been amused that when people talk about The Lost Words pages of absence they talk of a random scattering of letters. But they aren’t random. They are the twenty six. Because that is all there is. Twenty six letters. The alphabet.

Language. That’s the word on this page that I found most strange and beautiful. I love the shape of the g, and to see it used here, two in the same word…. Love the f too.

Anyway, it’s a good lesson in being in the moment, working one slow letter at a time, with no delete button! And even so I lost myself in the words, and there are two Water-snakes, the Anglo Saxon word for Otter.

Not quite finished yet. Needs more gold. There is English, Welsh, Irish, Gaelic in here. Dwr-gi and Dratsie are my favourites. And there’s the language of water and ink too.

Will be for sale. She’s quite big. And I will maybe make prints which will be for sale at £450, signed, limited edition.

Now it’s late. Rain on the roof and The White Cat has a new dog bed. Time to read.

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