Surmounting Problems...

This is an interesting one - the photos I am working from are not very good for portrait reference.  The main pose is an over-exposed picture, printed off a computer.  The other pictures I have show the dog's colour and character but the poses are pretty bad.  So I am having to combine them all in order to get the finsihed painting.  While I am working on it, I feel that it is pretty dreadful and that I really am not achieving much.  However, when I put it back on the easel and look at it from afar, I am so pleased with how it is coming along.  So I will just have to bite the bullet and keep on doing what I am doing and hope for the best!

With Halloween over, it is now time to start making preparations for Christmas (I can hear you all groaning, I did too!)  I traditionally make my Christmas cake at the end of October/beginning November and then 'feed' it with brandy on a weekly basis until just before Christmas.  By that time, it's probably not a good idea to drive if you've eaten a slice!

These little wall lights look deceptively simple don't they...don't be fooled!  They have given me a headache this week - knitting them was fine, but then I had to find something to go inside the shades to keep the shape.  After days of wondering if I could justify spending far too much money on a bulk pack of sauce pots  (what would I do with the 246 left over???) I finally found some plastic shot glasses locally which cost pence.  Then I had the problem of assembling it all so that the shades remained horizontal - there were tantrums last night as my theory of sewing a button to the wire and then to the shades collapsed in failure, with glue and tape not helping.  I slept on it and had a bit of an epiphany - so simple it's laughable, a couple of disks of thick double sided tape stuck either side of the centre and job done.  Phew!