A New Friendship

The image of Lucy and Mr. Tumnus walking through the snow was Narnia's beginning, and so it is rightfully its most famous illustration. 

It depicts the start of a wonderful friendship. But this discovery marks more than just the first meeting of two friends. It was also the onset of the Pevensie's adventures in Narnia, just as it marks the start for all those countless readers who have fallen in love with Narnia since. 

 

 

For Professor Lewis, Narnia began with a glimpse of a faun carrying parcels through the snow. Though he himself did not know what it meant or where the faun was going until Lucy came across him. Everything else, great and small and wonderful, came after that walk in the snow. In this way, one might say Narnia began with the meeting of a girl and a faun in a wintry forest. In the story of stories and how they come to be, Narnia begins with friendship, and to me, nothing could be better.

"And so Lucy found herself walking through the wood arm in arm with this strange creature as if they had known one another all their lives" 

~ C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 

 

The Richest Violinist

The Richest Violinist knew he was going to be a gift, and so, he felt special from the start. He knew even before I painted him onto his podium that the tree was designed for his leisure and every little critter below was devised by my brush so that they might listen with pleasure. 

I myself knew he was going to be a gift, and I painted him with this in mind. But it was not until I painted in his eyes that I knew this cat was not just a violinist, but the richest of violinists. 

 

He was so rich in fact that sometimes, when the night is clear and still, he would steal away across the hills from his mansion to the very tree I've pictured. There he would sit comfortably on the crook of the sturdy branch, its golden leaves whispering between the silver stars, and with a satisfied sigh, a bit like a purr but not quite, he would play. 

 

 

The rabbits of the countryside knew that this was when the Richest Violist did his best playing, there, unperceived by any but the company of nature that encompasses the clear soft evening. His music was lively and soothing all at once, and so, the eve being bright and song reassuring, the rabbits would play unafraid, even late into the night.  

 

The cat played for the love of it. He played like a dance, till it felt like the night was just a trance of his tune. He played where he perched, in a crook like the curve of the moon, paying no heed to the cows across the bow of the hill, which bounced happily, like the rabbits.

But then as chance had it, before the night had yet run its course into morning, I, the perceiver and the painter, had to come along walking, my brush in hand, and he saw me looking, as you can see by his smug certain eyes. 

And I knew at once by the look of his gaze that this creature before me was not just a cat violist. He was the richest violinist of them all. 

 

 

Lesser Griffins Chasing Fireflies

My husband is always asking me to draw things for him. He has so many ideas, yet so little patience for drawing.

I finally drew something for him. Behold, the Lesser-Griffin. 

I don't usually paint in this style, and I struggled for a while with making the owl-griffin look the way I wanted it to. But after I added all the little details to the background I was mostly happy with the finished result.