Original paintings, hand-made jewellery, knitted stuff and anything else I try to create. Contact: c_bletsis@yahoo.co.uk - All art works remain the copyright of the artist and cannot be reproduced without permission
Thursday, 22 May 2025
Bears...
Yesterday we went to feed a couple of rescue bears - what a great day! More when I have sorted out the many, many photos we took.
Monday, 28 April 2025
Poppy...
It's always difficult to paint a black dog, but even harder to get a decent photograph of the finished painting if it has been done in acrylics. Mr. B and I have taken several photographs of this one, and it always came out peculiar with the camera picking up the white elements of the painting far more than it should. We tried our phone cameras and a digital camera, and this is the best we could come up with and even this one has been tinkered with on Photoshop in order to calm it down a bit. Very frustrating!
No commissions for the time being - I am spending this week doing a bit of much needed Spring cleaning, trying to get the garden sorted out before it becomes a jungle, and hopefully painting a bear on the garden fence...
Wednesday, 23 April 2025
Small Things...
Inbetween doing that, I have been knitting a couple of Izzy dolls - they are quick, easy and give a good result for very little effort. I'm also working on a very detailed dog portrait whcih will be a wedding present for the daughter of a friend of mine. It's going well, but taking a long time - hopefully will be finished by the end of the week.
As well as all that, we have had my son's wedding to attend - it all went very well and was a happy day for everyone. I've also been putting a lot of work into the garden. Now the weather has warmed up, everything is growing at a rate of knots and needs to be sorted out. The greenhouse is full of seedlings, the fruit trees and bushes are full of blossom and burgeoning berries, the grass is growing, it's all kicking off!
We've also acquired 8 quite large goldfish for our tiny pond. One of our long-time neighbours died just over a month ago and his daughter asked if we would take them on as they had nowhere else to go. I spent the morningof Mothers Day with Mr.B pootling about in a murky pond trying to catch the fish with shrimp nets and a bucket. We couldn't see what was going on as the water had become so thick with silt and had to go back a couple of times to check we hadn't left any fish behind. They seem to have settled in very nicely and wait for me to feed them every morning.So, lots going on but nothing much to show!
Monday, 24 March 2025
Bridesmaids Posies...
These are for the bridesmaids at my son's wedding next month, and as my granddaughter is just 4 and her cousin is just 6, I had to make the posies pretty much childproof. All wires have been well and truly covered by florists tape and ribbon, all flowers have been stiffened and either glued or sewn into place firmly. I just hope the girls don't start whacking each other with them...
This was definitely a labour of love - I would need an awful lot of money to make these again, if at all, as the pain in my hand was unbearable by the time I'd finished crocheting the flowers.
Monday, 10 March 2025
Spring Wedding...
Well, it seemed a good idea at the time! I have really enjoyed doing it, but I chose fine crochet cotton in order to keep the flower sizes as close to real as possible which meant a tiny crochet hook...and very, very painful hands at the end of it!
These are the posies so far - they need the wires trimmed and tidied up, attaching to some 'wands', some hand crocheted lace around the base of the flowers and some ribbon. I think they will end up being very pretty and hopefully a sweet memento of the day.
Mr.B suggested I make them commercially...that's not happening! I don't think my poor hands would stand it...
Sunday, 23 February 2025
Walker's Water Beard...
I'm debating on whether or not to put him up for sale now or enter him into an art competition/exhibition first. It's been years since I entered a competition as I have been mainly working to commission.
Next up - commissioned work!
Thursday, 23 January 2025
A Horse Of Course...
I've finally caught up with the commissions I received before Christmas - a bit of a slog, but worth it! This horse will be going to Greece once we have figured out a way to get him there safely and without enormous customs/tax charges.
This is a larger than usual painting, covers my whole drawing board, and is mixed media - watercolour, Derwent Coloursoft/Drawing pencils, and a touch of acrylic - on watercolour paper. It was quite an undertaking and I got a bit disheartened at one stage with the amount of face a horse has! However, it went well and I am very pleased with the completed painting.
I'm now free for a while - next commission doesn't have to be done straight away, so time to do a bity of my own work.
I've also just seen the rough layout for the new Nudinits pattern book - looks very good and some very cheeky designs in there for humans, not puppets! Watch this space for further updates.