Ramblings of a (very!) amateur artist

Lockdown Life

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about my last cartoon. I titled it Here we go again and I suppose the only thing I’m a bit surprised about is that the wave didn’t hit earlier in Autumn. And so, on this Thursday 5th November, here we all go again. Plunged into ‘Lockdown 2.0’.

I started my Lockdown Life collection back in April as a way of coping with what was completely out of my hands. That feels like a long time ago now and, oddly, I’m reassured that my blind optimism hasn’t completely disappeared yet – I still have hope that this time, it really will be for four weeks. I might feel differently in mid-November.

Looking at the collection now, the ups and downs are plain to see. It all started with a light-hearted work challenge where my colleagues and I shared our ‘interesting commutes’. That was back when working from home still felt weird and tiring but was also quite novel. By early May, I think that novelty had worn off and, instead, I felt the need to draw out the recurring dream I’d been having about a huge wave – I used a couple of poor fish to represent us during the pandemic and they made a reappearance a few weeks ago.

Humour is definitely an important feature in many of the cartoons. I was particularly proud of Captain Polly Parrot and the ‘R’ rate. To this day, though the term has definitely become more normalised, I still think of a pirate every time I hear someone talk about the ‘R’. This is definitely an example of me continuing to laugh at my own joke! Sad, I know.

A section from *The ‘R’ rate* (May, 2020)

I wrote a blog post about each cartoon at the time so I’m not going to cover all of them again here but there are a few more highlights to mention. I found the news about wildlife reclaiming lost territory during lockdown to be very reassuring. It was marred somewhat by the fact that many of these wild spaces ended up getting trashed as soon as people were allowed to visit them again. However, (Re)claim it is a snapshot from that uplifting moment and it’s probably my favourite cartoon in the collection.

A lot of thought went into Here comes the guilt. I remember the day I drew this well. It was my birthday in early July. The pubs had just reopened and I felt guilty about what to do: Do I go out for a meal on my birthday? Do I go out for a drink at my local to support them? Do I stay at home so that there’s no chance I can infect anyone? As it turned out, I decided on a full lockdown birthday and didn’t venture into a pub until much later in July. I included the quotes in the cartoon to reflect how torn I was at the time. As Matt Lucas summarised it: ‘Go outside. Don’t go outside’.

A section from *Here comes the guilt* (July, 2020)

Though it wasn’t my intention at the time, with us heading into ‘Lockdown 2.0’ in England today, I think Here we go again is a fitting end to the collection. I drew each cartoon because I felt I needed to share something. I needed to draw out the way I felt and I hoped it would resonate with people – or at least give them a cheap laugh or a little chuckle. I definitely still want to share, but, with this turning into much more of a marathon than a sprint, I think lockdown-themed cartoons have had their time. Thank you to everyone who enjoyed the cartoons and read their stories – your comments, likes, shares and feedback have been incredibly uplifting.

This doesn’t mean that my cartoons are dead. I’m still working on a small project with a friend from work and I also have a couple of new additions to the family who I think will be the inspiration behind a new collection. They’re called Claude and Jolene and they wished everyone a Happy Halloween last weekend…!

If you’d like to see any of the Lockdown Life cartoons and read their stories, you can find them all in my blogs:

My Daily Commute / The Wave
(Re)claim it
The ‘R’ rate
The ‘New Normal’
My (first) Covid words
Here comes the guilt…
Testing the Water
Here we go again…

The lonely windmill

I’m not exactly sure where it came from, but I suddenly had an idea early this week about something I wanted to create. I might even be able to say that it was a moment of inspiration…

I’d been thinking about some of my pieces from March/April this year. Back when I turned to art as a way of coping with the UK’s lockdown. The subject of one of these pieces was a dilapidated windmill that I’d seen at Horsey Mere in Norfolk. I wrote about this in my ‘Dealing with Denial’ post in April.

On reflection, I think I rushed this piece quite a bit. I didn’t really know what I was doing with the watercolours so I decided to create it quickly. It has an air of the dramatic about it but I suppose I never thought I’d really done it justice.

A photo of the windmill from Horsey Mere (*credit: Stefan Lang*)

Fast forward to this week and I decided I wanted to do it again. I wanted to work harder at reflecting its dilapidated state but I also wanted to add a more vibrant angle to the piece as well. I suppose it’s probably accurate to say that this is a good reflection of the internal conflict I’m experiencing at the moment – the dark, negative, depressing moments (like the sun setting an hour earlier!) and the more positive, uplifting, motivated moments. I definitely flick between both worlds regularly.

I started by thinking about the background. I’d already decided that I’d use pen for the main subject. I can’t quite explain it but I always seem to be able to make pen do what I want it to do. It’s the only thing I’ve used where the picture looks good both up close and from a distance. For the background, though, I wanted something more colourful – a reflection of the more positive side to life. I decided to use some watercolours for this and thought back to my collared dove piece with its random splash of colours. I decided on cadmium yellow, alizarin crimson and prussian blue and just let the paint flow wherever it wanted to.

I then got my pens out. My partner very kindly bought me some more pens for my birthday in July and it turns out that these are much better quality than the ones I already had. I’m not sure what it is about watercolour paint (or paper) but when I did my Brent goose piece in April, I learnt very quickly that it wears down certain fine liner pens almost instantaneously. These pens from my partner, though, seemed to withstand the strain – big tick for him!

Lines rather than dots are my friend when it comes to pen. Dots take a very long time to build up texture whereas lines are quicker and (in my opinion) have a better effect. I tried to have as steady a hand as possible when I started with the blades – I really didn’t want to get them wrong! – and I had to think hard about how to make them stand out. It can seem logical to add darker tones in these situations but, actually, it often pays to hold back on the pen to add a bit of contrast.

I then added layers of lines on the rest of the building by criss-crossing the ink at different angles. Up close, it just looks like normal crosshatching, but, from a distance, it almost looks like brickwork that’s falling apart. That’s exactly what I was aiming for (even if it was a bit by accident!)

I’m thinking that this might be a new style to explore further. Though I’d tweak some things if I were to create this again (particularly the grass), I really love the contrast between the background and the subject and I think it could work for a range of pictures. And, cheeky plug, if you particularly like this one, it’s available in my landscapes collection in the EmilyRamblings Redbubble shop!

Examples of shop products:

You curl if you want to…

…The curlew’s not for curling.

I’m sorry. I have absolutely no explanation for that one. When I was thinking about writing this post, that’s what popped into my head. The original Maggie Thatcher saying is likely to make some people angry. It doesn’t even make sense. Then again, lots of my ‘sayings’ don’t…

Ok, so, the curlew. I’ve been working on this piece for a little while and I decided to focus on this beautiful bird because I was lucky enough to see a fair few in Wales in September.

I say lucky because I didn’t quite realise how uncommon curlews are becoming. I remember as a kid that I’d see the occasional few around on the West Yorkshire moors – I had many trips to Elslack Moor with my family, for example, and it’s become a bit of an annual ritual for my partner and I to visit this extensive moor around Christmas time. I’d therefore kind of assumed that you could see curlews pretty much anywhere.

Not so. Though there are still over 66,000 breeding pairs of curlew in Britain (according to the RSPB), like many birds, their population is estimated to have declined between 1995 and 2008 – by around 42%. Possible threats to this beaky bird include changes to moorland management and nest predation. So I did feel pretty lucky to see a handful of these on Bardsey Island in September (and if you’d like to read a brilliant blog about all of the wildlife on Bardsey Island, check out http://bbfo.blogspot.com/).

I decided to draw the curlew in ink following a piece I created of a baby blackbird over summer. I felt that the ink really brought out the patterns of the baby blackbird’s plumage and added layers of texture that I haven’t yet been able to replicate with any other material. The curlew with it’s intriguing streaks and pretty patterns hidden in the brown seemed like another good contender for a bit of pen.

Baby blackbird ink drawing – one of my summer projects

I completed the ink drawing in quite a few stages. I started with the head – I always think this makes or breaks a bird drawing so I spent a lot of time working on the neck plumage and the face. For those who’ve been following my blog for a little while, you’ll know how important the eye is (and for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about – check out this one!) I also focused my attention on the beak and nearly ended up adding too much ink to the poor bird. That would’ve been an irreversible disaster!

I then moved onto the chest/body and wings. I looked here for the patterns and shapes rather than the specific detail of the plumage. More than anything, I wanted to get the flow of the feathers right – sweeping down across the bird.

The legs and the grass were the final touches. I agonised over the grass and I’m still not quite sure I got it right. It was only when I finished the wings that I realised this poor curlew specimen looks a little stumpy (and pretty plump!) so I tried to give it a pair of longer pins by drawing taller grass than I’d initially planned.

Overall verdict – the poor thing still looks a bit plump. Oh well!

A scan of the final piece – this is also available in my online shop here 😊

Two Malhams

In this post, I want to introduce you to a beautiful place. It’s called Malham Cove. For those of you from Barlick and around, you’ll probably already know about this Yorkshire Dales icon. For anyone else, it’s a highly recommended place to visit if you ever find yourself around the Dales in a post-Covid world!

The Yorkshire Dales website describes Malham Cove as a ‘70 metre (230ft) high, gently curving cliff of white limestone’. It also says that the cove has amazed people for centuries. And amaze is definitely the right way to put it.

I remember the first time I took my partner there. It was an absolutely horrific day weather-wise. That sort of drizzle that just soaked you through. Despite this, we went ahead and walked from the car park past the quaint houses and pubs of Malham village and onto the paths through the fields. You can’t see the cove from the village but when you get that glimpse of it from the track, it just takes your breath away. A huge scar in the landscape. So when my sister mentioned that she fancied a picture of Malham Cove for her birthday, I couldn’t wait to get my watercolours out and have a go.

A photo from one of our trips to Malham Cove

I knew I’d have to be prepared to add layers to the picture and patience was therefore critical. So I found a photo taken from one of our trips, prepared myself for a long art session and got to work.

The first piece I did was pretty true to the photo (minus a few foreground details). I started with the sky by adding clean water to the page and then dropped blue paint into it – this is a technique I learnt quite recently and it’s a really good way to create a convincing cloudy sky. After focusing on the foreground next, I moved onto the main event.

To get the grey colour of the cove, I basically mixed all of the colours I’d already used together – I hate wasting paint! I started with a very light, watery layer before gradually getting darker and darker. I experimented with the colours and effects by dropping different colours into the paint while it dried at different stages.

The first Malham – a bit too dark for a birthday present!

I was very pleased with the final version. But then I looked at it again and thought it was a bit dark and depressing for a birthday present… So I decided that the wintery one would be one for me to keep and my sister’s one would be lighter and a bit more autumnal.

I tried to control myself a little more with the depth of the colours this time. I didn’t want the cove to be too dark but I also didn’t want it to lack detail. I propped it up every now and then to check what it looked like from a distance too. This is always a challenge when I paint – what looks good up close can look totally different from a distance and chances are someone in the future is looking at it from a distance! I also thought hard about how to mix the autumnal colours together in a way that would add to – rather than distract from – the cove itself.

The time just disappeared while I was painting and I was over the moon with the finished product. It’s genuinely the best thing I think I’ve painted. And, most importantly, my sister absolutely loved the gift!

Pastel, baby pastel

As you can probably guess, this one is about pastels. I don’t think I’ve written about pastels before and, to be honest, I’m pretty scared of using them. But I’ve been trying them out more and wanted to share a couple of pieces with you.

First things first. I think the title deserves a little explanation and, if you didn’t already think I was a bit crazy, you will now. You see, I’m going to take you on a bit of a journey. It all started with a book my partner was reading a few weeks ago. It’s by an author whose surname is Lovecraft. At first, this meant very little to me. Then, out of nowhere, without any warning, I suddenly burst out with ‘Lovecraft, baby Lovecraft!’ to the tune of that well known track Love Shack.

Then, when I was thinking through what I was going to write about this week, ‘Pastel, baby pastel’ just kept repeating itself again and again and again in my head. It doesn’t fit the song. It doesn’t make sense. But it happened. And what’s been said can’t be unsaid. So there you go – another corruption of a well-loved song was born!

Now, back to the pastels themselves. I have to say, I had no idea you could do so much with pastels and I’m still very much a beginner. When I first started getting back into artwork earlier in the year, I found to my surprise that I had two sets of soft pastels which I must’ve had when I was a kid. I really don’t like wasting things so, despite their age, I thought I should probably give them a whirl.

Soft pastels are pretty messy. And I quickly found out that better quality ones leave clearer marks on the paper but are also much more crumbly. And ‘more crumbly’ equals bad times for my furniture. I’ve already managed to stain a dining chair, for example, and have also blown pastel dust all over my laptop and phone repeatedly and I’ve never managed to clean it all up. I wear my pizza cat apron to protect my clothes (if you have no idea what this is, it made an appearance in my last post) but I still manage to get it EV-ERY-WHERE.

From my limited experience, pastel landscapes have avoided the bin the most and have therefore had the best outcomes. I’ve particularly enjoyed using pastels to recreate beach sunsets – soft pastels are great to use for these because the colours are really easy to blend (even if it’s a messy job!)

A beach sunset (or was it a sunrise?) with some graphite birds

The pastel painting above is just something I made up and the one below is based on a photograph of Harlech beach. I mainly focused on the colours and shapes in these pieces, which I think is what you’re supposed to do with pastels. Drawing detail is hard though and I need to try and practice this. I’ve seen artists do amazingly detailed pastel portraits of animals and people and I have absolutely no idea how they do it!

A pastel painting of Harlech beach, Wales

And, on this very gloomy October day, I hope that these pastel sunsets remind you of a sunnier, warmer September – that’s what’s getting me through the day!!!

Here we go again…

Yesterday lunchtime, I was sitting in my lounge reading a BBC article. I think it was about the horrendous experience some self-isolating university students are currently going through. Needless to say, if it wasn’t that article it was definitely one about the pandemic – it could’ve been about the dire state of the economy, the rising positive tests, the areas under ‘lockdown’ or our blind walk into a second wave. The scope is just endless.

Halfway through I had to stop. It was just too much. I could feel it in my stomach – the feeling you get when you’re about to go over the top of something. Like a roller coaster. Not that I’ve been on many roller coasters…

I thought about the feeling for a while and wondered if it’s something I could paint. I imagined a blank A5 canvas and thought about what I’d create if I just started painting. I decided in the end that my creation probably wouldn’t look very interesting – I think it would’ve just been black by the end and that was far too dark for a Friday afternoon.

So I carried on staring into space and thought again about the feeling. The next thing I pictured was that familiar wave. It’s the wave that I feel I’m about to ‘go over the top’ of.

I grabbed some paper, pens and pencils and got ready to start a cartoon. I knew what I wanted the piece to look like. Rather than the style of my past doodle storyboards, I wanted to be in the picture itself. So I drew it from the perspective of the crest of the wave and imagined I was a fish, sharing the same thought as my other fish friends: ‘here we go again’.

Looking at this today, I kinda wish one of the fish was laughing. Not a spiteful or inappropriate laugh, but more of an incredulous laugh. Because I really think that’s all we can do at the moment – laugh or cry. I definitely flick between the two. On some days I look more like the fish in the cartoon (like yesterday when I was reading the article). On other days, I just have to laugh. Both approaches are definitely dealing with the same thing – how to make sense of such a chaotic and unpredictable situation.

And laughter is important. There’s no denying that the next 12 months still look pretty rubbish and I know others have worries beyond anything I can comprehend, but I’ve promised myself that it can’t all be doom and gloom. When I chat to friends and family, for example, I think it’s important to have a laugh alongside the more serious topics of discussion. I even treated my grandparents to a glimpse of my cat-pizza apron this week (photo below) – I mean, they’re not exactly fans of cats but who couldn’t laugh at that???

My cat-pizza apron, modelled by my wonderful sister after she gave it to me for Christmas 2017. I’m not really sure where she found it! 😂

Finally, I hope my cartoon fish can remind us of something else. Though we’re not all affected equally (and this inequality is definitely NOT ok), I think it’s safe to say that none of us would’ve chosen this. We all ended up on this wave against our will. Blaming each other for it is really not going to get us off the wave more quickly – it’s just gonna make the journey worse.

A little interlude…

Well, it seems that every time I go on holiday in the UK now, there’s a guaranteed ramping up of restrictions the week afterwards. I can’t say I’m shocked – this week has been a little more predictable than when we came back from our Norfolk holiday on 21st March (I wrote about that trip away too). Back then, I was only just starting to get back into my artwork and I can’t believe how long ago that feels now!

I tried to stay positive last time and I’ll try to stay positive this time too. So, what do I have to say this time round? Well, last week I was lucky enough to go to Harlech on the Welsh coast and, like Norfolk, it’s definitely given me some inspiration for future pieces…

Let’s start with seabirds. I loved seeing the oystercatchers and curlews on the beach and even saw some sanderlings (I don’t think I’ve seen these before). This was in addition to the usual gulls, wagtails and geese that you see by the coast. So far, I’ve started off a pen drawing of a curlew and I’m disciplining myself to take the time to do the detail properly – there’s a sneaky peek below, but I think it may well justify its own blog post.

A work-in-progress curlew in fine liner pen

I’m also toying with the idea of focusing some future pieces on mammals (if I’m brave enough that is!) I haven’t really branched into the mammalian world so far, but we saw some seals and their pups while we were away and had some encounters with a whole variety of sheep. So I might have to bite the bullet and have a go!

If making a mammal the star of the piece is far too much, another option I’ve considered is to include a few animals in a range of landscapes. I love the coast so much and it always amazes me how the same place can look so different each time you visit it. The Welsh hills also treated us to some spectacular views – and boy were the hills steep!!! It’s safe to say that there are a lot of ideas in my head so I’ll keep you posted about what eventually spews out!

Oh, and a final update, I recently completed my first commission! I wasn’t sure I could do it justice at first but I was really pleased with it in the end and, more importantly, my first customer was very pleased too. Since then, I’ve been overwhelmed by the family and friends who are interested in commissioning pieces as well. Thank you – it really does mean a lot! 😊

A long walk (or ‘wawk’)

Ages and ages ago, my partner and I decided that we’d walk to Stratford-upon-Avon at some point over August bank holiday weekend. Back then, I’d assumed this would be about as long as the road route. So, around 9 miles. Quite long but definitely doable in one go.

A few weeks ago, however, it was revealed that, following the Shakespeare Way, the walk would be no less than 15 miles…! I have to say, my feet were very sore by the end – one of my toes was more blister than toe! – but I absolutely LOVED the walk and it was the inspiration behind a different kind of piece from my usual birds and butterflies.

I’ll quickly take you through the walk. We set off at around 07:30 on the Sunday morning after having a very quick breakfast and packing a few supplies into the rucksack. We’d booked somewhere to have a big lunch when we arrived so our only form of sustenance en route was a bag of jelly tots.

There’s something really refreshing about going out for a walk so early in the morning. I think the sunshine definitely helped, but everything just seemed so peaceful as well. We passed a few key places – Honington, followed much later by Halford, then Newbold. Finally, we arrived at Alderminster and that’s when the jelly tots were cracked open! This was quite a milestone, as it meant we were definitely over halfway there.

The River Stour – I wrote about the first part of our Stratford walk in another post recently! *(Credit: Stefan Lang)*

The last few places came in relatively quick succession (Preston on Stour, Atherstone on Stour and Clifford Chambers) but I was definitely starting to feel it in my feet! When we finally saw Stratford ahead, I was ready to throw my shoes off but, first, we needed to descend a small hill – oh the pain! Needless to say, we rewarded ourselves with a rather mega roast dinner at the end of it all!

The weather was so beautiful during the walk itself and my partner took quite a few photos of our journey (which he has been duly credited for in this post – apparently I’ve ‘forgotten’ to do this on previous occasions 😂). And looking back over these photos last week made me want to paint. Landscapes aren’t my best, but I’m definitely getting better at them and, like most of my artwork, I wanted to do it largely for the joy of the experience rather than the outcome at the end.

Our approach to Stratford *(Credit: Stefan Lang)*

Ironically, I decided to use one of the only photos taken when the sun had pretty much disappeared. I wanted to paint this one, though, because I just love water. Wherever you find water, you can usually find a bird of some kind. Or, failing that, a dragonfly or a butterfly. So this watercolour is inspired by the River Avon.

The River Avon – shame the sun disappeared! *(Credit: Stefan Lang)*

Confession: I’ve definitely tweaked it. And I didn’t mean for my version to look so gloomy. I wanted to use some of my favourite colours – yellow ochre and prussian blue – and just thought I’d see what came out of it in the end. I also tried to use the white of the paper while painting the river. Utilising the paper itself is definitely a skill and I’ve definitely got it wrong at times! I didn’t think it went too badly this time though.

For the reed bed, on the other hand, I decided to try out another technique. I used one of the sharp corners of the paint tube to draw the individual reeds in the paint. That was a bit stressful but it was another useful skill to practice!

And next time? Well, maybe I’ll try and include a duck, swan or moorhen in my river scene. But I’m not sure I’m brave enough for that yet!!!

The finished watercolour – Winsor & Newton watercolours on A4 cold pressed paper

A little more motivation

I woke up this morning feeling seriously de-motivated. It’s becoming a more regular occurrence – it could be something to do with the darker mornings or I might be going through one of those ‘what on earth shall I do with my life’ cycles – and I really felt I should do something about it.

So, after I rolled out of bed, I decided to go for a morning walk to the nearby meadow and I have to say, I’m so pleased I did!

As soon as I got to the meadow, I heard a loud chirping in one of the trees. There was a beautiful bright red robin there singing its heart out. The camera on my phone isn’t great, but I painted this tweeting robin in its honour. I tried some different watercolour styles with this one and I really struggled to leave it alone! After a final touch of pencil, I stopped myself from adding anything else to the poor creature!

Watercolour – inspired by the chirping robin

Back to the walk. Just as I turned away from the robin, I was treated to a more unusual sight – a greater-spotted woodpecker flew out of the bushes and landed in a tree that was also occupied by a huge pigeon. I watched the woodpecker moving up and down the tree for a bit, feeling very lucky to have been in the right place at the right time.

As I followed the track down through the meadow towards the River Stour (for my fellow northerners, it’s definitely more of a beck), I took in the views around me. I could see lots of sheep in one of the adjoining fields and, even in the greyness of this September morning, the scenery looked beautiful. I crossed a very small bridge and spotted a little bird in the reeds and nettles. I think it was a wren.

Believe it or not, the River Stour is somewhere in there!

I then paused for a little while on the bank. There were a lot of brambles on this side of the river and I could now see lots of goldfinches darting in and out of the greenery. They were joined by at least one blue tit, a great tit and some long tailed tits. It looked like they were having one hell of a party!

I continued through the field – usually it’s full of sheep but they were clearly elsewhere this morning – and there was one final treat in store. In the grass near the edge were two green woodpeckers. They were chasing each other around and were a bit spooked when some cyclists came down the road that passed near them. In their panic, they flew straight past me and landed in a tree somewhere closer to the river. It seems green woodpeckers are really quite abundant around here – I’ve seen so many recently and have learnt that they have a very peculiar call!

When I arrived home I definitely felt like I’d regained a bit of motivation. And I suspect the main cause of my mood this morning was actually the grey. Just a few hours on, I already feel like I could do with another walk!

A Curious Critter

I promised my Instagram followers that there was a good story behind my recent watercolour of a squawking starling. I do therefore hope that the main event in this post doesn’t disappoint!

Starlings often get a pretty bad rep. Their Latin name, for example, includes the word vulgaris – I think this means ‘common’ rather than ‘disgusting’ but it still isn’t the best start! I don’t intend on adding to this bad rep with my story. I’d say that it instead highlights the curious and adventurous aspects of their personalities and those are both good traits, right?

These birds actually feature in one of my early childhood memories; looking back, it’s a funny story but it really wasn’t at the time! I was at my grandma’s house and I’d taken my furby with me (remember the old school ‘90s furbies???) and it was driving my grandma up the wall. Its repetitive ‘Furbish’ words were getting too much for her and she threatened to peg it to the washing line and let the starlings have it. I was utterly horrified and guarded my furby all day.

I remember there were always loads of starlings outside my grandma’s flat and it was only when I moved to Warwickshire that I realised I hadn’t really seen many starlings in any of the other places I’d lived as an adult. I don’t remember any in east Oxford, for instance, I don’t remember any in Elephant & Castle and I don’t remember any in West Oxfordshire. Though I didn’t realise it as a kid, starling numbers have been falling for the last few decades. According to the RSPB, starling numbers have declined in Britain by 66% since the mid-1970s.

In Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire, though, we actually have a fair few. In spring, I noticed that our next door neighbour had a nest of very loud starlings in their roof and, once the cherries appeared on our tree, all of the starlings in the neighbourhood absolutely feasted on the fruit in our garden. I even drew a quick doodle of these starlings for ‘30 Days Wild’ in June – they were very noisy and were very funny to watch.

Starlings and Cherries – this is available in th e ‘Critters with Character’ range in my Redbubble shop!

Now, it’s difficult to know where to begin with my main starling story. Thinking about it, the whole episode should probably be framed as a bit of a murder mystery. Though, I should say, no one died. A detective might just wanna get involved, if you get my drift…

It was February 2020 – is it me or does that feel like a LONG time ago?! – and I’d had quite a busy day. I was due to do some of my volunteering straight after work but this had been cancelled. In hindsight, this was probably a very good thing. I drove home, had a quick sit down and then went upstairs to get changed. Everything seemed the same as usual when I suddenly heard an almighty bang. I ran into the spare room and tried to work out what on earth had made the noise when, out of nowhere, a starling flew up from the floor, perched on the clothes drying on the rack and looked straight at me.

I can’t remember exactly what I said at that moment. I was just beyond confused. And next thing I knew, it lunged itself at the closed window. That was really hard to watch and it was clearly (and understandably) very distressed. I shelved my most pressing questions – the main one being how on earth did it get into the house when all of the windows are shut?! – and tried to work out how to release it from the house. I opened every window on our top floor and it flew from room to room for a bit until it finally exited through the bedroom window.

After the clean-up, I just sat in disbelief at what I’d witnessed. My first thought: did I just hallucinate. My next thought: I should google this. So that’s what I did and I learnt that starlings are very curious and clever critters. They can apparently make their way into people’s houses through loose vents and small gaps in walls. So I started checking the bathroom extractor fans (both were secure) and even checked for holes in the floor in case it had found a way through the walls and then up through the floorboards (there were no holes in the ceilings or walls anywhere).

The most logical explanation was that it had made its way through an open window. Indeed, a starling recently tried to enter our bedroom by hopping onto the frame of an open window and then hopping into the room. But, on this February day, literally every window was shut.

This bird certainly left its mark on me for a little while. I went through a routine of closing all of the doors on the top floor religiously before leaving the house so that, if it happened again, we’d know which room the hole was in. After a few weeks, I stopped doing this and we thankfully haven’t had a repeat performance. But I always wonder if I’ll meet my starling friend again!

I wish I had a more satisfactory ending to this story but I really don’t. To this day, I still have no idea how this curious critter was able to enter my life in such a dramatic and unforgettable way. Any theories are therefore extremely welcome.

In the meantime, my watercolour will be a reminder of the curiosity of this adventurous starling and a warning of the mischief they can cause!