Wolf With No Name...

I completed this yesterday - it went very quickly despite the amount of brushstrokes needed to render the fur!  Painted in acrylics on a canvas board.

This is one of the wolves we saw at the UK Wolf Conservancy during our visit last year - I took lots of photos with a view to making paintings from them at some point.  Unfortunately, what I didn't do was note down the names of the wolves as I took the pictures - I don't know which one this is.  I've sent an email to the Conservancy with the reference photo asking which wolf it is...I'm kind of hoping it is Torak, the one that escaped and went on an adventure a few weeks ago!

Artist's Block...

Sometimes creativity reaches an impasse.  No idea why, it just happens out of the blue and is extremely frustrating.  Last week - and the week before - I had the time to paint but could not think of a single thing I wanted to paint.  Then when I found a subject, the drawing went very badly indeed and two attempts went in the bin.  So it was time to step away and go and do some heavy gardening to take my mind of it and vent some of my annoyance!

Then I had a search through my collection of photos and found one I had taken at the UK Wolf Conservancy last year that I quite fancied painting.  Three attempts later, I gave myself a mental slap round the face and used a grid to map out the basic sketch properly over the top of the failed efforts, painted out the errors and then it was business as usual.  I'm pleased with how this is progressing and very glad that the awful mind fog has lifted!

Acrylics on Dalerboard.

Triangular Shawl

Amongst everything else lately, I have been slowly knitting this scarf/shawl for the past few weeks.  It's in an interesting yarn, cotton consisting of four fine strands which gradually change colour as you knit - it starts with a deep teal and ends up a deep orange.

I like a yarn that does something as you work - keeps it interesting!

This is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

Otis Again...

I have finally managed to source some hardwood discs without holes drilled in them in order to make some painted brooches.  Here is Otis the bear again, painted & varnished and ready to go.  I will take better photos when there is daylight as I cannot escape the reflection of the flash or overhead light when taking pictures after dark!

Little Bear At The Falls...

Whilst waiting for photos for the next dog portrait, it seemed a gold opportunity to paint a picture I've had in mind since last summer when I took a snapshot from the webcam of Explore.org at Brooks Falls.  Most of my snapshots from the webcams are pretty rubbish as far as artisitic composition is concerned, but this one came out nicely.  It was fun to paint as well - the bear itself did not take very long at all, but the water was quite an undertaking.

I've used watercolour on a piece of sample Arches paper - out of the six samples in the pack that I bought, I think this is my favourite to use as it holds the colour but also remains moist for quite a while so that you can work wet in wet for longer.

Next experiment, drawing on brown cartridge paper...