Full moon soon

Calling all lunatics! This Sunday will be the last full moon of 2017. I know this because of my handy dandy Lunar Calendar, to which I have contributed since 1983 at the invitation of Nancy. F. W. Passmore, editor of the Luna Press. I worked on the cover of the 2018 edition during my trip to Ireland in May. Well, I did a quick sketch anyway.

From the cottage where we stayed in Dunquin, I saw a distant island.

Everywhere we went, it was there, like a body floating.

It’s called Inis Tuaisceart and I couldn’t get it out of my head.  Plus, there are goddess faces in unlikely places.

Upon return, I drew several versions of it with a slightly more goddess shape. After all, the Lunar Calendar is Dedicated to the Goddess in Her Many Guises.

I’ve illustrated the cover many times. This is my fourteenth! Normally I do several ideas for consideration, but on this I was really into this single idea. But I did several color studies, each featuring a crescent moon, since that’s what we saw during our stay in Dunquin.

The final pastel captures how alive the goddess can be under even a sliver of moonlight.

I did an interior piece, also sparked by our travels in Ireland. We stopped at the Celtic History Museum one afternoon, where I saw this curious figurine.

Later that day, we came upon a labyrinth behind the church in Dingle.

Some things can’t be explained. This is what I did.

In order to fit the calendar, Nancy sought poetry to be paired with this. Voila, Diana Rowan obliged, with grace! It appears in black and white in the calendar, above the informative spiral of moon phases and their daily rise and set times.

How else do I know when to wait by the ocean for the moon to perform it’s magic? Meet me back shore on Peaks at 4:30 this Sunday, if you like.