The digital home of author & photographer Chris Elphick | All content, unless otherwise stated, is copyrighted © Chris Elphick

Sunday 30 June 2019

Verry Volk Sunset

Over the next few posts, I thought I would share a few of the images that I will be using to illustrate my next book - The Verry Volk. This is a guidebook that features the faery folklore of the locales I inhabited and explored as a child. The main text is already written and is currently being typed up, although I do have to write an introduction to the work, which I have yet to start :( 

First up, here is a photograph of the sun setting behind the dunes on one of my favourite beaches - Broughton:


I did toy with the idea of having this photograph as the cover image for the book, but I am still quite fond of the last design I made for the guide. I am definitely going to use it as a promotional image for book though:

Promo for The Verry Volk
The image will appear on the rear cover of the The Verry Volk, however. Here is how it is looking this evening:

Rear cover design for The Verry Volk


https://land2.leeds.ac.uk/people/lawrence/

Saturday 29 June 2019

Cracking On With The Verry Volk


A Green Man Door Knocker For My Writing Shed

My daughter spotted this fantastic Green Man door knocker in a shop closing down sale in Norwich. It now guards my writing shed door here in Wales :)

Friday 28 June 2019

What Wild Worlds Are Created Behind This Door?

What wild worlds are created behind this door?



Click here to discover.

Hay Fever!

I would formally like to thank Piriton for allowing me to sit out in the garden to do a bit of reading this morning :)


Introducing The Cover Design of The Verry Volk

Here it is, the cover design for The Verry Volk. The writing for this short guide is now complete, but I am still working on the photographic content of the book. I am hoping it will be published and available for purchase sometime this autumn...


Thursday 27 June 2019

Out In The Garden

With the first draft of Berserk! put to bed, I am taking a few days break from that title to concentrate on a smaller project I need to catch up on - a brief guide to my local faery lore:



Wednesday 26 June 2019

Very Few Things Beat Reading In The Sunshine

With the first draft of my fifth book completed, I  am now taking a hard-earned break in the garden with this great Stephen King novel:

Very few things beat reading in the sunshine

Berserk! Draft One Complete :)

The first draft of my fifth novella, Berserk!, has now been completed. And I am quietly happy with its mad denouement :)

Tuesday 25 June 2019

Sunday 23 June 2019

Berserk! Cover Design

With the end of the first draft of Berserk! in sight, I have started work on the cover design for the book:


My original photograph of one of my local woods

Work in progress on the book cover for Berserk!


Epsom Salts and Nag Champa


Having a nice long epsom salt bath in the hope that it eases my continuing back pain. Burning some nag champa incense to soothe my soul...

Saturday 22 June 2019

Berserk! 2 More Chapters Needed!

Well, it looks like I need another two chapters to finish off the first draft of Berserk. This news has surprised me!

Story-boarding Chapter 11

Friday 21 June 2019

Summer Solstice Writing

I sat out in the garden this Summer Solstice afternoon to do a bit of writing. By a fluke of timing, the chapter of Berserk! I was working on was set on Summer Solstice and details a Summer Solstice ritual. I love coincidences like this :)




A Misumena vatia Spider

I will conclude today's celebration of Summer Solstice with these two pics featuring a Peacock Lily and something rather curious I found lucking within its petals:

A Flowering Acidanthera Peacock Orchid
Misumena vatia spiders are curious little creatures which actually change their colour to camouflage themselves. The spider hiding in my Peacock Orchid was as white as the driven snow but this species can take on the most spectacular colours in their bid to surprise their insect-prey. I am no real fan of bugs, arachnids and other such critters, but sometimes the creatures you find amongst the garden flowers you grow can be just as fascinating as the plants themselves.

A Misumena vatia Spider with it's Breakfast :o/

Bee Resting On Arum Lily

It is not just flowers that flouring during Summer. Insects do too. Here is a shot of a bee taking a little rest on an Arum Lily in my garden :)


Papaver somniferum

More Summer Solstice images, this time of Papaver somniferum:

















Lavendar in the Sunshine

Another Summer Solstice image - Lavender in bloom, backlit by an intense Summer's sun really does make for an eye-catching magickal scene :o)

A Magickal Scene ~ Lavender in the Summer Sunshine

Feverfew

Another Summer Solstice Celebration post, this time on a pretty little herb I found growing naturally in my garden - Feverfew:

Feverfew

Feverfew was used in medieval Europe to relieve many ailments, including inflammation, menstrual pain and general aches and pain. It was also used as a protective charm against plague.

One of my cats exploring a Feverfew plant

Feverfew

Feverfew

Field Poppy

An on my Summer Solstice celebrations rage, this time with a short post on the Field Poppy:

Field Poppies (Papaver rhoeas) are one of Britian's most vibrant and beautiful wild flowers. Given their delicate splendour, is is no surprise to find the flowers are rich in folklore and symbolism.


Most people know of the poppy's connection with Armistice Day (often called Poppy Day). This association grew from the WW1 battlefields in France, where the fighting churned up the soil and brought thousands of dormant poppy seeds to the surface and decorated the land where so many had died in swathes of the gorgeous red flowers. The colourful scene which marked the fields where so much horror had suffering and death had occurred is, perhaps, best remembered in the following poem, written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae:


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high.
    If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
        In Flanders fields.