Sweet...

 Last week saw my granddaughter's 3rd birthday and she had a little party with all the 'oldies' - grandparents, family friends etc.  Mr.B took a sweet photo of her eating a slice of birthday cake and I just had to paint it!  I used a new set of watercolours, Rosa, made in Ukraine, that I bought with a gift voucher received on my birthday.  They are quite different to the watercolours I usually use (White Knights) but once I'd got the hang of them I really enjoyed using them for this delicate little painting.  It was really good to paint something different - I've had a year of painting dogs - and getting my brain working!

No commissions at the moment - please get in touch if you would like me to paint something for you!  In the meantime, we're giving thebathroom a little makeover so the next thing I shall be painting is a bath panel and a set of shelves!

James...

 I have just finished this watercolour portrait and am so very happy with it!  When someone asked if I could paint their late partner, only recently deceased, I felt a huge responsibility and was anxious that I might not be able to achieve a suitable representation.  However, the photograph I was given to work with was so good and so joyous, I knew straight away that this was going to be a thoroughly enjoyable task.

This one is big - it's about three times the size I usually work with, and took up my whole drawing board - as I work with my board in my lap, it was a bit of a handful at times!  I started with the background and then the scarf and shirt - unusual for me, I usually start a portrait with the eyes, but as the eyes were sunglasses in this case, I thought to begin from the outside in.  There was not a single part of this painting that I did not enjoy, and I am particularly proud of how the sunglasses have turned out, especially as once I had completed them and their reflections, I realised you can see the suggestion of the gentleman's eyes behind them.

Now to await the client's reaction...

Violet...

Now things have settled down a bit since last month's slew of terrible things, I have had more time to spend at the drawing board.  I am still trying to get a commission finished that I started far too long ago, but I took a break over the weekend to draw this one.

Violet is a very special little person to me,and I did this picture as a birthday present for her mother. I used Derwent Coloursoft and Drawing pencils on a blue-grey pastel paper.  I thoroughly enjoyed every second of this one - not just for the subject matter but it felt so good to be sat with pencils in my hand after so long!

Here's how it looked framed: