Otis...Again!

I thought I might go Christmas shopping today, but then when I got to the station there were no parking spaces so I came home again and did this instead. Otis the bear in a rare moment of activity at Brooks Falls, Katmai - I used a snap I took on the Explore.org web cam as reference.  Watercolour on Arches NOT paper - the paper is a sample and I love it, must try and get hold of some more.

I Must Be Out Of My Tiny Mind...

I had this idea of making painted earrings...yeah, well I can't see many pairs of those being made.  This wooden disc is about the size of a 10p coin and the brushes I used were 0000.  Time to have a re-think...

Selling Like Hot Cakes...

...or something like that.  Third one this week, available in my Etsy shop.

Just made prints of this one available on Society6 - they can be seen here.

Wolf

A wolf painted in watercolour, using one of the photos I took at the UK Wolf Trust in September as reference.  Completed this really quickly today - got lost in it for a few hours!

503...Again!

Another painted pendant, this time a portrait of 503, the bear I recently painted a watercolour of.  This one is a commission and it turned out rather well - he's such a handsome bear!

Polar Bear...

 A couple of weeks ago I bought some sparkly black felt...it reminded me of the night sky and I had the idea to make some Christmas decorations.  This is the first of a few - I appliqued the shape of a polar bear (drawn from a photo I took on the Explore.org polar bear cam) and then embroidered the detail on. I added a bit of 'snow' on the ground and a few twigs.  Finally I stuck on a scattering of tiny silver stars.

It is sewn with silver thread over a piece of foamboard and has the same black sparkly felt on the back.

Currently for sale in my Etsy shop - hopefully there will be more...

Otis...Again

I found these wooden disc pendants hidden  in the mess at the back of my desk and thought I'd do a little painting of Otis the bear.  This will be for sale in my Etsy shop as soon as I can figure out how to photograph it without the varnish reflecting!

Edit:

 It helps when the sun comes out!

Jabba The Hut...and we're done!

 Completed the last in the series, Jabba the Hut.  This one took ages as it is considerably bigger than the other dolls, as you can see.

All these dolls were from a kit by Lucy Collin, called Star Wars Crochet - I can highly recommend it.  You don't get enough wool in the box to make more than about three of the dolls, but it is easily possible to find the oddments you need in your stash.  The patterns were clear and easy to follow, plus very cleverly designed.  I'm not being paid to promote this, I just really liked the patterns!

Next up, a knitted lurcher.

Sleeping Beauty...

A portrait of my favourite bear on the Explore.org web cam at Katmai National Park, Alaska.  This is the sub adult bear known as 503 - he has a pretty amazing story.  He was abandoned by his mother at only one and a half years old, a year too soon, because she came into estrus and was being pursued by a large boar.  It seems harsh, but it was for his own safety - male bears will kill a cub that gets in the way of their pursuit of a female.  He wandered around lost for a while then started following another female bear that already had a small spring cub a year younger than him.  Somehow he managed to worm his way into the mother bear's affections and was adopted and brought up as her own, even suckling at her teats.  This is almost unheard of in the bear world.

When it was time for his adopted mother known as Holly, to emancipate her own cub, 503 had had an extra year of being with a mother, something that has stood him in good stead.  Since then he has proved to be a very confident and healthy sub adult, fishing at the falls with the large boars, playing with various bears both large and small, and still keeping good company with his adopted sister.  This year he was such a proficient fisher that he ended up sharing his catches with a group of newly emancipated sub adults - another event that is pretty much unheard of, but then he is rather an unusal bear.

He is also rather a handsome chap - I have painted him a few times before.  This is watercolour on Bockingford paper.

Boba Fett

This was a complicated little fella!  All these Amigurumi figures are only about 10 cm tall, so crocheting intarsia is a fiddly business.  Just Jabba the Hut left to make before these can go off to their new home - he's going to take a while as he is five times the size of the others.

On the easel - surprise, surprise, another bear!

Darth Vader

I like this one, but it was incredibly hard to crochet black wool under electric light!  I'm sure there must be a few errors in there along the way but with the black wool, hopefully they don't show!

Two left to make...

Han Solo

Not the most interesting of the characters to crochet, but still cute.  Next up is Chewbacca, the one I have been waiting for!  I've been very good, working through the pattern book systematically, not cherry-picking the best designs first...which makes a change for me!

Annie

Private commission, watercolour on watercolour paper.

"Luke, I Am Your Father..."

 Well it made me laugh anyway!  Here is Luke...

...and R2D2.  Seven down, five to go.

Seasonal Problems...

This is the latest commission I am working on but it is slow progress.  Not only are the markings on the horse very complicated and full of subtle colours, I am struggling with the lack of daylight November brings.  Usually I can get by during dull days using a daylight lamp, but once the main electric light in the room has been turned on, the colours in my palette and on the paper are distorted with a yellowish hue.  Most of the time I can allow for this and keep on working, but I daren't with this one for fear of wrecking it totally.  So working hours are mainly in the morning  up until lunchtime, with possibly an hour after lunch if I am lucky.  Very frustrating indeed!