Spring Waits in the Wings
The next instructional video, fantastic fish, quills and brushes, courses and more
Greetings to you from my writing desk which is blessed with a small vase of British daffodils, a favourite. I hope this message finds you well. Thankyou to all who read this newsletter, who come along to courses or who have paid subscriptions here, which makes my research, books and courses possible. Today there is a new / old video to say thanks to my paid subscribers, who have continuous access to all the instructional videos I post here. If you do not have a paid subscription, hopefully Substack will be offering you below a ‘7 day free trial’ so that everyone, no matter their income, can get a chance to watch it, (as I never wish money to be an obstacle to my work). If that hasn’t appeared, and you do not have enough money for a month’s subscription, then reply to this email, and I will comp you for two weeks, so you can watch it.
Speaking personally, this year has already seen its fair share of challenges, so today I took things gently and treated myself to one of my favourite hobbies, sewing pouches from fish skin leather (which I had previously made from waste stream skins from my local catering fishmonger). Sometimes, when the pressure of making sure research and exemplars for new courses are ready, hand outs are complete, travel arrangements are made and proposals emailed to my editor… the sheer joy of making things with my hands can get side-lined. After a while, I can feel grouchy and ill at ease. This miraculously disappears if I allow myself to regularly do a little crafting, ideally most days. It does not have to be much: yesterday I sewed the years-overdue curtain to hide the mess materials storage to the side of my bedroom. What a difference a plain drape can make. I feel I even slept better because of it.
T’ai Chi, exercise and seeing the sea are also part of my everyday health-life but nothing can compare to the quiet mind that comes with being engaged in the flow of making something small stitch by stitch.
What have you made this week? What will you make next?
Course News
USA: My planned courses in the United States have been postponed until 2026, for both personal (health of myself and family) and impersonal (travel logistics) reasons. I look forward to returning next spring on a planned East Coast tour with Theresa Emmerich Kamper.
EU: Her tour of Europe, which I was also teaching and assisting on is also now cancelled as there is certainly a great tension in the air across mainland Europe, with people keen to hunker down, spend little, and travel less. It is understandable, given the geopolitics of this particular moment. We shall return when the time is right.
UK: I look forward to working with her again in April 2025 at Butser Ancient Farm where the two introduction to natural inks and paints days have sold out. There is a new date available 5th August and it should be up on their website soon. I will also be at the Butser Book Fest with both my books 18th and 19th October along with the wonderful HWAET zine folk. I can’t wait!
Theresa’s courses are at this link. Behind the scenes, we have been working hard on tanning, dyeing and patterns for sewing fish leather. We have designed a lovely course and look forward to sharing it with you soon.
Drawn From The Wild (the level two in-person Found and Ground course) is booking but is now postponed until 16th-20th March 2026.
121s: As travel abroad is postponed, I now have more dates available to teach adults 121 at my home in Bournemouth. Free parking and a train station are nearby. Get in touch to get more details if there is something you would love to study with me in depth in person.
The planned ‘Draw and Paint on Everything’ course to be hosted by Plants and Colour is being currently being transformed and enlarged into something else and will hopefully appear next winter. More on this later in the year. My other courses about pigment and watercolours, and pastel making, will be reappearing with her soon for you to watch.
Upcoming
Driver request: Found and Ground course runs this June in Devon. If there is anyone coming who is driving and who can take me back to Bournemouth after the course, or go both ways, do let me know by replying to this email. I am looking for lifts, rather than killing my back lugging huge bags of rocks on the train, yet again! I will happily pay all the petrol and meals on the way. Please do get in touch if this sounds like something you could do. Many thanks.
Rima Staines and I have both been under the weather with health and family commitments this last few weeks, so we still don’t have the final name and weblink for our ‘Painting from Earth and the Heart’ course, apologies. We are set to finalise the details this week but the dates are 7th-11th July 2025 and the amazing venue is in Buckfastleigh, Devon, UK. She and I will both send a special newsletter out as soon as I have the details. Booking will be via her website.
The call-out for the next Dark Mountain book is ongoing. I am part of the editing team and we are looking for great writing on Uncivilised Art. Is that you? Here’s the call out details.
The online book launch for Drawn From the Wild be be on June 5th, 5pm UK time. The Zoom link is made, the artist contributors have been invited and all that remains is for me to create the Eventbrite as the event is free but will be ticketed. The link will be in the April newsletter. I have not yet decided if I will do an in-person book launch this summer, or if I will wait until Butser Bookfest. What do you think?
The Book Shelf
I once went to study wild pottery with Ruby Taylor of Native Hands and have stayed in touch, subscribed to her newsletter and followed her on Instagram since then. Her course was beautiful and it is only lack of time that has kept me from heading back to do some of her beautiful basketry courses. She has a new book out on Wild Basketry and I am really looking forward to seeing it.
March’s Instructional Video -
Quill pens and feather brushes from the Wild Twins course
Below you’ll find a video I made back when I lived aboard a very small boat on the River Thames. It shows how to make a quill pen and a feather brush using swan or goose feathers, (or something of a similar size), which I had sent out to students in a special parcel of foraged goods. Moulted feathers are easy to find in late spring and summer along Britain’s waterways and I collect, clean and grade them, then dry and cure them for use.
In England when I filmed this, we were deep in the second lockdown, and my friend Paul Kingsnorth and I had taken our popular Wild Twins course online. Designed to ‘rewild your art and writing’, Wild Twins was originally held on the wild Atlantic shore of Sherkin Island, Ireland. Now confined to our homes, we shot films, held Zooms and sent parcels of wild materials all over the world. When you watch this, you’ll hear those things referred to, and rather than cut them out I’ve left the film as-is, as it was nicely edited by (my now wonderful partner) film-maker Jonny Randall. I hope you enjoy it. Warmly, Caro.
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