The story behind this painting derives from a childhood memory. The girl child sat upon the bear’s furry back is named Sugarplum (after a fairy I suppose), and the bear acts as a father to her after her own kin vanished when she was a small baby.
Together they wander through the enchanted forest of faeries and trees in search of nursery rhymes and dreams.
May ~
A startled magpie pursuing an owl, jackdaws nesting in the crumbling remains of an engine house, a lone raven collecting bread for its nest, raggedy ponies grazing, geese and chickens roaming farm land, the winding roads of Brea, gypsy horses and caravans, the watchful gazes of rooks, fox resting by the roadside, shipwreck coves, swallow tailed birds flitting back and forth to the cliffs, black-backed gulls circling above the sea, forgotten feathers, caterpillar cocoons nestled amongst gorse.