Drakas Arts & Illustration by Heather

28/04/2026

This!

A world-famous book has called a Glasgow building home for almost 200 years, and it will now be opened to the public for free.👇

09/04/2026

Dreamy...

The Phantom Voyager
Originally commissioned for a French entertainer, this ornate boat bed has spent decades drifting through the history of cinema. It is a rare piece of craftsmanship that transcended its functional purpose to become a recurring visual icon on the silver screen.

26/03/2026

Love this.

Inspired by the title of one of my favorite paintings, "Night with her Train of Stars and her Great Gift of Sleep." by Edward Hughes, this picture takes its title from W E Henley's poem 'I M Margaritae Sorori'.

In this work, I've portrayed Nut, the Egyptian Goddess of the sky and all heavenly bodies, and the protectoress of the dead when they enter the afterlife. According to the Egyptians, during the day, the heavenly luminaries —such as the Sun and Moon—would make their way across her body. Then, at dusk, they would be swallowed, pass through her belly during the night, and be reborn at dawn.

I believe this is key to her mythos, as most every story of Nut demonstrates the maternal, loving characteristic of her as Cosmic Mother.

She is the barrier separating the forces of chaos from the ordered cosmos in the world. Nut was thought to draw the dead into her star-filled sky, and refresh them with food and wine: "I am Nut, and I have come so that I may enfold and protect you from all things evil."

Her titles were many, and included:

- Coverer of the Sky: Nut was said to be covered in stars touching the different points of her body.
- She Who Protects: One of the key myths charges her with enveloping and protecting Ra, the sun god.
- Mistress of All or "She who Bore the Gods"
- She Who Holds a Thousand Souls: Because of her role in the re-birthing of Ra every morning and in her son Osiris' resurrection, Nut became a key god in many of the myths about the afterlife.

The presence of Nut has always struck me as the gentlest of Mothers, shepherding her children, whether souls or stars, and tending watch over the hosts of heavens. In this, I have portrayed her with that countenance of adoration and protection, and rendered carefully every star as an individual point of light.

And in the doing, every star is a prayer.

For your well-being, for your peace.

For you to find your way home into the open and waiting love of the arms of our heavenly Mother.

“Night and Her Train of Stars”
Mixed Media
2015

NOW AVAILABLE! Large Format 16X20 signed gallery print: https://etsy.me/40ZnnNH

08/02/2026

Ox

ANCIENT WELSH BOOK REVEALS THAT KING ARTHUR MAY HAVE BEEN REGARDED AS THE LAST ROMAN EMPEROR

In the earliest historical references to King Arthur, he is often associated with two serpents. His mentor Merlin finds two serpents beneath the Welsh fort of Dinas Emrys. Excalibur is described as having a design of two serpents on its hilt. The Mabinogion refers to a twin-serpent amulet that protects Arthurian Britain. Arthur’s father, Uther, has two golden dragon figures crafted at his capital of Wi******er, earning him the title "Pendragon". Why serpents?

Just before the Romans finally left Britain in the 400s, the Notitia Dignitatum, a register of Roman units and their emblems, records that the crossed serpents were the insignia of a Roman army unit, the Seguntienses, based in North Wales. As this was precisely the area where Dinas Emrys is situated, and where the oldest versions of the dual-serpent motif appear, it is possible that when the rest of the Roman army left to defend Rome, some of the Seguntienses remained behind, rather than continue to fight for a collapsing empire whose capital had fallen to the Visigoths.

One of the earliest references to King Arthur, in the work of the early ninth-century monk Nennius, describes him as a warrior who united the feuding British tribes to repel an invasion by Germanic Anglo-Saxons around the year 500. He reveals that Arthur was ultimately a successor to Ambrosius Aurelius, a high-ranking Roman officer with whom he associates the two serpents of Dinas Emrys. Ambrosius, it seems, may have been the leader of the Seguntienses contingent that remained in Britain. Another British monk, Gildas, who wrote within living memory of the events, relates how Ambrosius defeated the Anglo-Saxons against the odds, perhaps by deploying this trained and equipped Roman force.

The medieval Arthurian romances relate how Ambrosius established his capital at Amesbury (named after him) in southern England, and that Uther succeeded him there and moved the capital to nearby Wi******er, where he adopted the twin golden dragons as his standard and took the name Pendragon.

This series of events may well have been what historically occurred before King Arthur was proclaimed king. It was with the power of the last of the Romans that Arthur’s kingdom was established. Indeed, it might explain why in the medieval Black Book of Carmarthen, now in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, where I was last weekend, Arthur is described as Emperor. Perhaps the last Roman legion proclaimed him emperor when the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed in mainland Europe in the late fifth century.

Pictured here is the Black Book of Carmarthen (National Library of Wales)

24/01/2026

Ox

22/01/2026

Ox

12/01/2026

Ox

A forgotten section of the crypt at Glasgow Cathedral has been reimagined for public viewing for the first time in living memory.

20/12/2025

My 2nd Favourite in The Kelvingrove!

‘The Druids: Bringing in the Mistletoe’ - jointly painted by George Henry, and Edward Atkinson Hornel in 1890. The painting depicts a procession of noble Druidic priests/priestesses in ceremonial robes bringing in the mistletoe from the sacred oak tree. Mistletoe was a plant that was revered by the Druids for its magical as well as it’s medicinal properties. (On permanent display: Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow).

* The large oil- on- canvas painting measures 152.4 x 152.4cm (60x60 inches).