Kingfishers and Kent

This time last year there was a crowdfunding movement to raise money to place a copy of The Lost Words into every school in Scotland. The campaign raised so much, and it was possible to send with each book the printed notes for teachers to help them use the book to inspire learning. On the success of the campaign more grew, and a community of people blossomed, helping each other to find ways through large and small donations across Britain, colouring the country with places where mine and Robert’s book has been given to schools. We’ve seen amazing work produced by incredible children with teachers just astounding us with their creative use for this tool, this book, that we made.

In Suffolk the campaign was led by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, and books often flew into schools accompanied by owls.

Harry, who makes murals, has made this wonderful map that he updates regularly as new areas spring up and new campaigns become successful. Robert and I have tried to support where ever we could. For Suffolk we made a piece of art that became something like a ‘raffle prize’, a feather of a barn owl, and also a print of an owl with a new barn owl spell that became a book plate for each book. Inked otters became a new form of currency.

The movement spread and in Wales Earth Science Partners raised money to place the book in care homes, and in Oxford, a movement grew to put a copy of the book in every hospice in the land, and work onto the walls of Sobell House Hospice. Amazing.

In support of The Lost Words for Kent Robert is donating one of the few remaining limited edition prints, of the kingfisher, for auction. This is produced by Aquarelle Publishing who are a joy to work with. They worked and worked to find a way to gild the prints, and this is Robert’s personal artist’s proof of the special edition gilded kingfisher.

Kingfisher was the place we began The Lost Words, in 2015. Robert wrote the spell as his first acrostic, and I painted, not this one though. This was my third attempt, and this is the one used in the book.

There are only 2 of these artist proofs. The other belongs to my sister.

I’ve held auctions before on my blog. This is how it works. The reserve for this is £350. To bid you leave a comment on this blog post with your bid in £s. All money will go to The Lost Words for Kent schools. 

All comments have to be actioned by me, so sometimes things get muddled but I will email you if someone has bid more, and usually, somehow we make it work. The auction ends when the last bid in 24 hours has come in.

Although it is a print it is unique in that it has hand written piece on front and Rob is happy to write the whole of the kingfisher spell on the reverse of the print and dedicate if requested. You can find out more about the pieces here at Aquarelle’s website.

If you would please share the post that would be wonderful.

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