Study In Water

After the Easter weekend with everyone home for four days, it was good to get back to the easel on Tuesday.  I've had this painting in the back of my mind for a couple of years ever since I took a snap on Explore.org bear cams so it was time to put it down on paper.

I have to admit I spent more time on painting the water than the bear - it is one of my pleasures to play with paint & water to see what happens as it mixes and swirls on the paper.  I used a couple of my precious Daniel Smith watercolours, and they granulate and create interesting effects all by themselves.

Then the bear was another exercise in mixing the paint on paper to get the effect I wanted on the head and the wet fur.  I just love watercolours, you never know if they will cooperate or not!

Diddly Donkey...

When my daughter was at infant school, she learnt the Christmas song Little Donkey for the nativity play - she couldn't pronounce 'little' so it became 'diddly donkey' and she sang it for months after Christmas.  So it has stuck - she has grown up and can say the title properly, but me and Mr.B still call it Diddly Donkey...

This is a watercolour painting of a mare & foal donkey at Miller's Ark that we saw a couple of weeks ago.  The foal was only a couple of weeks old and cute as a button.  I have tried to keep this one as loose as I could - not as loose as I would have liked but still relaxed on the detail for me!  It was a lot of fun to do and a bit of a break inbetween commissions.

Swimming Bear...

Completed this today - very happy with how it has turned out.  Watercolour on paper.  This will be for sale in my Etsy shop soon.

Work In Progress & Some Very Tiny Bears...

 I started this one last week - it seemed a good idea at the time until I started painting the water!  However, after a bit of a think and breaking it down into just shapes, the painting turned out to be successful.  The photo I am workingon is quite dark so I have had to lighten the bear's face considerably but I am very pleased with how it is going so far.  Watercolour on paper.

I am in the process of packing up and sending the stuffed Otis toys and thought it might be fun to pop a little extra in each parcel.  This is a very miniature mother bear & cub - the cub is just over an inch long.  As he was knitted on 1.5mm needles, I am not sure there will be many more of them!  See, when you buy from me you never know what you might get!

Seven Otis Army...

This lot are finished and ready to go.  Think I might take a small break, cough up a couple of hairballs, vacuum the house thoroughly, before starting on the next lot!