Meet the animals
At Mosney Mill there are so many beautiful animals roaming the grounds, each with their own loveable characters, many of which have inspired Emma’s collections.
Here’s a note from Emma to introduce each one to you!
Robin
Meet Mosney Bob! I love robins. After a really sad time in my life a little robin followed me around for days. Every time I left the house he was there twittering away, bobbing from fence post to fence post, making me smile and filling me with hope. Bob twitters to me each morning from the tree above the chicken coop. He watches me tend to our rabble of livestock, knowing all too well I’ll have a handful of seed or a mealworm or two to leave on a fence post for him. Bob adorns a selection of Mosney Mill goodies. He’s a real feature here at Mosney, and I hope he will become a much loved part of your home too.
Deer
The very first time I set foot on Mosney ground, it was so over grown you really couldn’t see more than a few metres in front of you. I was walking Finlay our Labrador and two Roe deer leapt out majestically in front of me, if I’d held out my hand I could have touched them. I don’t know who was more shocked, the deer, myself or Finn! There haven’t been many days since then, that we haven’t had a visit from the deer. I regularly sit in the garden sketching and photographing them. A collection of these sketches appear on my wallpaper and deer fabric ranges. The deer head image appears on a range of Mosney goodies with a gently humorous play on the word ‘deer’. My particular favourite is the “Take a Note Deer” Exercise book. I hope you enjoy him.
Pheasant
Meet Reg and his friends! My dad works tirelessly on the land, clearing ditches and building features to attract the wildlife. One of his most successful additions to Mosney has been a large pond with an island on it. Moorhens and Mallards are regulars, this year a family of Canadian Geese who usually visit in spring to rear their goslings on the river in front of us, decided to use the pond as their nursery. My kind dad took to feeding them all, using an old tin chicken feeder. Every morning he would set off across the fields with an enamel bucket full of duck feed. He’d never get more than a few meters into his journey before Reg and his harem of lady pheasants would appear from the woodlands and waddle behind him. This was a wonderful sight to see and it gave me many opportunities to sketch Reg in all his splendour. By the time autumn arrived he was a slightly rotund but very pleasant pheasant indeed!
My mum and dad love the Pheasant range. The wallpaper adorns their dining room overlooking the fields where Reg regularly roams.
Blue tit on blossom
Being an ardent tea drinker, I spend rather a lot of time staring out of my kitchen window into the trees while waiting for the kettle to boil. There’s nothing that can make me smile more than the sight of a cheeky blue tit or two feeding and playfully perching amongst the leaves and blossoms. I am also lucky enough to have blossom trees close to my studio window where I spend hours watching the blue tits performing their daring acrobatic moves.
The blue tit and blossom range emerged from a sketch that I just kept working on whenever I had a few spare minutes and it was Christmas time by the time I was adding the final flourishes to this design. I’d had the studio doors open earlier that day and a cheeky little blue tit must have come in to investigate the Christmas tree I had in the corner of the room. Just as I added the final detail, he flew down to my drawing table and caused quite a stir! My Husband Dave and I finally managed to get him back outside and I often wonder if it’s the same cheeky bird when I watch them playing in the trees now.
Bee and wildflower.
After a couple of failed attempts, we finally managed to plant the most glorious wildflower meadow. It was marvellous to watch as month by month a different sea of colour would emerge as flower by flower the meadow grew and evolved. Needless to say, the wildlife loved it. There were flocks of Goldfinches who fed on the thistle down, pheasants and even the occasional deer who nestled down to doze amongst the blooms. But it was the bees who really inspired me, who knew there were so many different varieties! They would practically roll in the pollen and appeared to be almost drunk!
I was busy sketching them when I noticed one poor bee drowning in my two old horses water trough. I scooped him out and put him on a tea-plate in my studio window to dry off. When he appeared fluffy and dry again, I was just about to open the doors and let him fly back into the meadow when he wandered off the plate and fell into a cobweb! It took me a good half an hour’s work with an old water colour brush to pick the web of his wings but when I’d done, I set him free and he flew off into the flowers with his friends. By that time I’d got to know him well enough to name him Bartram. I hope he make you smile as much as it made me smile to see him flying away no worse for ware from his little adventure.
Edgar Green Bunny and Friends.
We don’t get many rabbits on the land here at Mosney HQ. I was working at my drawing table when my daughter Skye came running in to tell me there was a little bunny playing in the corner of our meadow. She asked me to draw him and to call him Edgar. I spent a good while watching that little bunny play while sketching him, and by the time I’d got his likeness just right, I’d named him Edgar Green Bunny!
He looked for all the world like he was trying to get our chickens Cake and Jelly, to play with him. They wouldn’t have anything to do with him and I felt rather sorry for him, so I drew him with some playmates and the Edgar Green and friends range was born.
The Swallows.
It was dusk on a summers evening when I drew the swallows. They were swooping over the river dipping and diving for insects before soaring back up into the air and I was struck by calm blue of the sky and this inspired the colour choice for the background of this range.
