All I have to do is walk in the countryside around Glasgow and I am convinced that we coexist with fairies. The Scottish landscape is full of magical corners, paths, trees and streams. These feed my imagination and fire up my drawing hand. You may already have heard of selkies and have seen them in the evocative film set in Ireland, The Secret of Roan Inish, but you may not have come across kelpies before.
I have been fascinated with kelpies ever since I found a Victorian travel gazette about Ireland from the 1840’s which described the Pooka, a type of kelpie, that apparently lived in a deserted island in the Kenmare River. Pookas, like kelpies, can assume different forms, including the “water horse”, a gigantic stallion that drags its victims down into lakes and streams. I have drawn and painted various versions of the pooka/kelpie and written a short story about it.
“Night Horse”, shown here, is a pastel drawing on Canson Mi-Teintes paper. The horse leaps over a classic Scottish tower house style castle at the edge of a loch and several croft houses.
Night Horse by Teresa Flavin
This image hangs over my desk as I type and transports me out of my studio and into a starry Highland night.