I Must Be Potty...

I saw these tiny wooden flowerpots in a magazine article and had to get some! They're so little!

This is one of the things I had in mind to use them for - I knitted the cactus last night using the equivalent of cocktail sticks.  This is the larger of the two sizes.

I had an idea for jewellery using the smaller pots - I've yet to see if it is workable, might involve drilling and eye-strain.

Geese & Goats...

There hasn't been a lot of painting lately due to other commitments, but over the weekend I managed to complete this little watercolour of some geese.  Not how I had it in mind, but that's OK it was just good to be painting again.

The reference photos for this were taken on Good Friday at a place down the road from us called Miller's Ark, which had lots of baby birds and animals to be stroked and held.

 Some got a little too familiar...

...that's not lunch, kid!

Next on the easel, a duck...

Move Along, Nothing To See Here...

I have been working hard the past week or so, but on writing up and typing knitting patterns so I don't have anything to show here.  Have a gratuitous photo of my daughter and Daisy instead!

All the typing should be over by the end of today, then perhaps I can get back to the easel - withdrawal symptoms setting in!

Plums & Plumes...

I've had no time for painting over the past 10 days, as I have had to transcribe my scribbly notebook scrawls into legible and workable knitting patterns for an up and coming exciting project.  I did manage to squeeze in a very quick watercolour sketch of some plums while I was teaching one of my students yesterday.  I knew they looked deceptively simple - it was quite a challenge getting the colours right and not too garish.  Perhaps I should try to do a few more quick paintings in between the typing just to keep my hand in!

I saw this pattern on the latest edition of Knitty.com and had to try it using my beautiful ball of yarn with the brilliant name of 'When Clowns Cry', bought at this year's Unravel.  Another thing that looked deceptively simple!  If you keep count, the pattern is easy - if you don't, it's doomed! I had to unravel a whole feather yesterday as I had been knitting while half asleep the night before and lost count completely.  I'm now keeping tally with a pencil & paper.

Back to typing....

Macaw Feather

Another little watercolour study.

Feathers & Sketches

A couple of days ago I tidied my desk...that's a bit of a misleading statement as it will never be 'tidy', but I sorted it out, cleaned it up and found a few things I had mislaid.  One was a bag of macaw feathers that we filched from Bird World last year, scrabbling with our fingers through the wire amongst the poop & dirt.  I love macaws, and even their feathers inspire me with their irridescent colours.  I painted a few of the smaller fluffy ones in watercolours, just for fun.

I also came across a couple of sketchbooks which had a few memories hidden away - here's a selection:

 Alderney...

 Alderney...

 Fuiggi, Italy

 Our old dog, Jasper, & an agapanthus, both sketched one summer in our garden.

 Jasper asleep on the armchair.

 Parrots - no idea where or how I did these but I am loving the central one's expression of bliss as he scratches his head!

 An experiment...

 St. Lucia

 A hibiscus painted in St.Lucia and a hummingbird came to feed as I painted - not a great painting of him, I was too excited and trying to gt it down on paper as fast as I could.

 St. Lucia, Rodney Bay

 St. Lucia

 St.Lucia

 Another experiment in watercolour

Some vase of flowers or other!

I often say that I don't do sketchbooks, but that's obviously not true - I think it's that the sketchbooks are never finished, I just have numerous half filled ones.

And now all my equipment is set out where I can see it - better do something!

A Leopard & A Bit About Clovis...

I don't know why, but 2016 has been quite difficult so far - things around the house have broken down, my dog is very sick, and there have been all kinds of paperwork and meetings to deal with.  Consequently, there has not been either the time or the inclination to paint or make much.  Last week I really wanted to paint something, anything, because painting gives me a few hours respite from the trials & tribulations of reality!  I didn't plan to paint a detailed leopard, I wanted to do something much splashier & loose, but this is what came out instead.  It's a small watercolour, detailed in parts, looser in others.  It kept me sane this week.

This week's turbulence was caused by this chap - I've had difficulty getting him to eat over the past couple of weeks, but he has done so each day eventually and other than that has been OK, enjoying his walks albeit at a slower pace.  A couple of mornings ago he was gently cantering up a field and suddenly came up short and couldn't put any weight on his front leg.  Not sure if he slipped, twisted it, or what, but he was in a bad way.  We slowly got him home, but for the rest of the day he was barely able to walk and obviously in a lot of pain.  He also barely ate - which carried on until yesterday, with him refusing to eat anything so I couldn't get his heart pills down his throat either. Seeing him incapacitated like that was scary and upsetting and made me think that perhaps this was finally the end and I made an appointment with the vet.  To cut a long story short, after trying almost the whole contents of the fridge & food cupboards, I discovered he would at least eat a few Swedish meatballs - so I whizzed to the shops to get some more, and he ate half a pack.  The vet prescribed Metacam (painkiller) and was not as pessimistic as I was - I'm not good when those I love are very ill.  By the afternoon Clovis was able to walk round the block and ate a plate of tuna & pasta.  This morning he positively ran in from the garden, has eaten his pills and another plate of meatballs, veg & pasta.  So a reprieve for now, thank goodness.

In the meantime, I knitted him a coat - his doggy raincoat flaps about and slips off half the time, so this seemed a good idea.  After the past couple of days, putting a skull & crossbones on it seemed a bit macabre, but I always wanted him to have a coat like this as he is a bit of a pirate!

It fits well, doesn't slip off, and got a compliment on it's first outing at the vet's.

We'll give it a proper trial this morning on our walk - and no, he's not coming off the lead today!!