Deborah Vass

Those of you who follow me on Instagram and Twitter will know that I am rather partial to moths. The hot, still summer days of the past few weeks has meant there has been an abundance of moths in my garden and each day I have been drawing my new discoveries. You can see the results on my sketchbook pages on my website. I am delighted that this article has appeared in the Summer edition of The Suffolk Argus, the magazine of the Butterfly Conservation Charity.http://www.suffolk

I love winter, but this January has been a particularly dark, damp and dreich month and I have found myself looking for signs of spring to provide cheer. The low natural light has made it difficult to work, and even with daylight lamps, I have confined myself to small projects until the gloom lifts. I stood yesterday, gazing out at the garden, idly waiting for the little flock of long tailed tits to arrive, when, out the corner of my eye, I saw a small movement in the honeysu

In sketching and thinking about trees, it has led me to remember with fondness the poem “Birches” by Robert Frost. This is a poem I have loved since reading it for “O” level, and then went on to teach, many years later. As an inner city child, my experience of trees was negligible. We had two Bramley apple trees in the garden, but the experience of playing in and climbing trees was a somewhat mysterious activity to me. It was only reading the poem much later, with a particula