An auction, a school visit, an otter

I have to confess to being utterly confused by the new interface with wordpress, BUT I want to auction a piece of work for a school library, so I will try my best to make this work, but if I am silent for a while afterwards it’s because there are things I would rather be doing than trying to get to grips with this. But first, a puffer fish Christmas bauble.

Last week I went into a school in Rugby. The school had been working on The lost Words, and there was wonderful work on the windows to greet us as we arrived.

I get so many requests from schools to visit, and so many are working on The Lost Words, often using the Explorer’s Notes written by Eva John. But I can’t go to them all. I need to be home, making new work. This visit had been planned for a while.

I painted otters, a wren on an acorn, a small dragon. The children listened, asked questions. Kenilworth Books supported the event, and Tamsin had been in the school before me, working with the children. They are the most brilliant bookshop who work so hard to support authors and illustrators, independent publishers, build readers of the future. They help to find grants for schools to purchase books for school libraries and bake the best biscuits. Oh, and do other amazing things too. 

After school parents bought books for the children. I left the two big otters I had painted for the school library, and the wren on the acorn and the Paddox dragon, to watch over the school, but the other otter came home with me. Because the other otter has a job to do.

This otter is a different kind of library otter. And now this otter has white gold letters, and an otter spell, Robert Macfarlane’s, but written by my hand in pencil, and gilded splots, and now this otter is for auction.

To bid on this otter, who is painted with sumi ink on watercolour paper, gilded with white gold leaf and is 75 x 56 cms leave a comment on this blog post with your bid in £. I’m happy to post anywhere in the world. The money raised will be paid to Kenilworth Books where it will be held for the school library of Paddox school to draw on to buy books for the school. ( Like many bookshops Kenilworth offer a discount to schools, as well as advice on new and brilliant books and fantastic backlists by authors) It’s like a Christmas present to a whole school. The auction will close 24 hours AFTER the last bid has been placed…….. so, it may take a day, a week, a month, but probably not so long….. but it’s not like eBay where people can sneak in a last bid before it times out. The aim is to raise as much money as possible for the school. All comments have to be actioned by me. And I will try to keep an eye on the blog, and authorise comments. As auction comes to a close I will contact bidders by email. Please email me if you have any questions.

If you could, please share. And, well, I seem to have got to grips with the new interface, so maybe an old dog can learn new tricks. Right, I’m away to read my book. And Ivy is very pleased to have me home.

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