Too Many Prickles...

This week I saw a picture in  magazine of a vase with some stems of gorse in it - it looked really pretty and I thought 'I could do that' as we have some gorse bushes along a path at the back of our house.  So I took the dog for a walk, found a gorse bush and proceeded to pick 3 branches.  Turns out that while gorse branches snap off very easily, they are covered in very sharp prickles - you'd have thought I would have taken that into account.  Anyway, I did happen to have a wadge of kitchen roll in my pocket which I wrapped around the gorse and gingerly carried it home.

Upon getting it home and trying to put it in a vase, I discovered that due to the excess of prickles, gorse literally 'walks' straight out of any container you try to put it in.  So I ended up snipping off the bottom few inches of sharp bits in order to make the stuff stay put.  At this point, seriously wondering if it had been worth the effort...but it does look nice and smells divine.

Next day, I thought I'd like to try painting the gorse...yeah, after wrestling it back into the vase after it decided to 'walk' when I was carrying it over to my desk, I discovered that the numerous prickles aren't much fun to paint either.  It was a good experiment, but not one I shall be repeating any time soon.
 

Otis...

I completed this yesterday - it has taken weeks!  This is Otis, of course, in acrylics this time, on board.  It is a private commission and will be heading off to Canada shortly.  It was a lot of fun to do a larger acrylic painting after what feels like a very long time.

However, I am going to give myself a rest from bears for a few days and play with some new watercolours that I bought a while back, painting something, anything, that isn't brown!
 

Looking Sheepish...

 Last week I knitted this dress for my granddaughter, and finished off the appliqued sheep last night.

This is a combination of two patterns - the one I found with the sheep design had a fancy smock style bodice with a Peter Pan collar, which I didn't like at all, too fussy.  The other pattern had a lacy skirt, but a nice plain bodice.  So I knitted the second pattern, omitting the lace.  Initially I tried knitting the sheep into the skirt as per the first pattern, but my work was tight and lumpy and did not look good.  So instead I knitted the dress plain, and then made little sheep bodies to be sewn on with their legs, tails & heads embroidered over the top.  I think it came out pretty well!

Now we just have to see if it fits the young lady in question!

Currently On The Easel...

It's been a long time since I painted a larger detailed acrylic, so even though the subject is one I have painted more times than I can remember, I am still enjoying the process.  I would say that Otis is three-quarters done, then only the water left to complete.  Hoping with today's sunshine giving me a decent light to work by, I'll get a sizeable chunk painted.