Otis and the Raven

This is a small watercolour & ink painting of a bear called Otis who lives in Katmai National Park, Alaska.  He's usually a very chilled old bear, concentrating on catching and eating fish in vast amounts while keeping himself out of trouble.  However, last year this raven just got on his nerves!  I painted this from watching the video clip several times & taking various screenshots plus using a bit of imagination.  Now for sale in my Etsy shop.

Bear Today, Gone Tomorrow?

I've been quite affected by the fact that the US Senate just passed legislation allowing the killing of bears & wolves in Alaska - in their dens with their cubs by gassing, from the air with guns, baiting bears & shooting them, using snares and traps - all because they feel these predators severely deplete the supply of moose and deer for people to shoot.  Seems a twisted logic to me, but nothing the current American government does surprises me any more.  So I was moved to paint this picture - looks innocuous enough from a distance, but has quite a bit of symbolism if you look closer and think about it.  Well, that was my intention at least - whether or not I've pulled it off is up for debate, but it's how I felt and interpreted it.
Acrylics on board.

Can We Get Back To Normal Now?

 Spring has definitely sprung where I live - primroses and violets in the garden, as well as daffodils and plum blossom.  The year is already a quarter through and I feel as though most of it has been spent either with builders in our house or with me ill.  After the kitchen refurbishment, which ate the whole of January, we were then told they wanted to fit a new boiler and water tank - begs the question as to why this wasn't done at the same time as the kitchen, but I guess that would require some sense and logic...
Anyway, that took place a week ago, and yesterday we had a chap come round to make good the mess caused last week.  We've also had numerous visits by various plumbers trying to sort out why the cold tap in the bath was only giving out a trickle since the refurbishment.  Despite me asking every time if it could possibly be the knackered feeder valve in the airing cupboard, I was ignored and each plumber had a different theory which meant they went off promising to come back and sort it and were never seen again.  However, after pushing to get it fixed before one of us got third degree burns in the shower, the fifth plumber came last week, ostensibly to change the taps (which were brand new six months ago) but after I explained the situation he crashed around for a bit then came downstairs saying he'd identified the problem.  Can you guess what it was?  Yeah...maybe the blonde lady should have been listened to six weeks ago and saved you all a lot of time!  So finally we have a safe bath, and hopefully after they come tomorrow to sort out a radiator that isn't working properly since the boiler was fixed (you really couldn't make this up) I might get my life back.  I wonder just how many days I have wasted on this in total - it has been virtually impossible to get any work done when I have strange men and their tools, dust sheets, and loud drills causing a disturbance.

There has been a fair bit of knitting in the evenings though, most of which I can't show just yet.  You'll have to make do with a small bowl of plums...

I've also been working on this painting - while at first glance it looks pretty normal, I have a bit of a different idea for this one, it will carry a bit of a message.  I'll only show it if it works!