Did I Really Crochet All That?

This is about 9 feet of crochet wire spirals, threaded with shells, pebbles, seaglass, beads, various flotsam and jetsam.  Happily it is in 6 pieces so was not to hard to handle while making.  It's going off to America to embellish a large framed mirror - hopefully I will eventually have photos of the finished piece to see where all my hard work went!

Snow Leopard WIP

A little peek here of what's currently on the drawing board.  I just had to paint the magnificent snow leopard I photographed at Marwell zoo on Monday and after much deliberation over which medium to use, I've decided to try something slightly different.  This is with acrylics but on a piece of Murano pastel paper, using the reverse side which is smoother.  I love the contrast between the icy blue paper, white and deep grey paint - having the blue paper also affects the tones of the paint when applied which is just what I wanted, that chilly feel to it.

The paper does tend to suck up the first layer of paint until the acrylics dry and seal it - not a problem, gives me time to think about my next brush stroke and correct any errors without too much effort.  I'm back to using tiny brushes so this may take a while!

Pug!

Pugs seem to be a bit of a 'thing' for me at the moment - they are very cute little dogs, although I don't hanker after owning a real one.  I do enjoy making them out of felt and yarn however - this is the latest little chap.  It is loosely based on a patten from the book I was given, but once again the instructions for the face were vague and unclear so I had to use my initiative.  I also changed the legs - I didn't like the sewn on stumpy ones, so improvised extra length for the upper leg and wool jointed them in place. 

He also has a smart red coat - well, it's cold outside!

The sore throat has now knocked me for six - perhaps striding round a zoo in the cold yesterday wasn't such a good idea! 

Thank You Lemsip!

When I awoke this morning, I didn't think I was going to go any further than my own front door - my throat was agony, my head pounding and I definitely felt very wobbly.  However, after a mug of hot Lemsip and a brisk walk round the fields with the dog, I felt a bit better and went to work and on the trip to Marwell Zoo.  I'm so glad I did because I managed to get photos like this......

........and this.........

....and best of all, this....

No prizes for guessing what will be on the easel tomorrow!

That's Different!

After not getting near paints & paper over the holidays, it was time to get the creative juices flowing once again.  I'm not feeling very inspired at the moment, a bit rusty, but a lovely bunch of bright orange tulips I bought on Friday just begged to have their portrait painted.

This has been painted on watercolour paper with an odd little palette of really intense water colours that I bought from Etsy a while back.  There is nothing subtle about any of the pigments, but it was great fun using them with a large brush and having to paint in a loose, simple style for a change.  I love the way the orange and the deep turquoise just ping next to each other.

Tomorrow, insipient cold/flu permitting (definitely sickening for something), I am going to the zoo with the school and hoping to get some decent reference photographs for some wildlife painting.  So I'm praying the sore throat, aching limbs and muzzy head will have gone by the morning!

How cute is this - my dog and his best girlfriend on a frosty field this morning.  My dog is a cantankerous chap when other dogs leap about on him, but this little collie can do what she likes and he puts up with it all. The feeling is mutual - sometimes she suddenly bursts out of the undergrowth, seemingly from nowhere, has a bit of a play and a hello with Clovis and then charges off into the distance and we never even see her owner.  Luckily the lady who owns her knows by now that when her dog disappears it is 99% because she has caught a whiff of Clovis and not to worry because she'll be back soon.

Slowly Getting My Life Back........

The Christmas break seemed to go on for an eternity this year and whilst it was fun at the time, I'm very glad to see the back of it.  What with one thing and another, there has been very little time for crafting and even less for painting and I am starting to get severe withdrawal symptoms.

I have been working with wire, beads and shells for the first time in ages though.  I have an interesting commission to make about 8 feet all together of this........

...to be used decoratively on a large mirror.  So I am crocheting 18 inch strands...one down, five to go! 

Mr. Bulldog (or whatever he is) now has a comfy bed and a little knit jumper....I think he might get a toy and a bowl too before being put up for adoption! 

Now that Christmas has been cleared out of my house, all visitors gone and sanity restored, perhaps this weekend I can get the paints out as well - keep your fingers crossed for me!

Explain Yourself!

I've looked forward for a few weeks now to getting down to making a knit dog from my new book 'Knit Your Own Dog' but haven't had the time.  This week I finally got the chance....and I must confess to being a bit disappointed.  I know it must be possible to achieve results similar to the ones in the photographs, but I found the instructions really unclear, particularly as the first dog I attempted was an English Bulldog.  When it came to sewing the body and head together, they might as well have been written in Sanskrit for all the sense they made to me.

I know I am a visual learner and work better if I have a diagram to go by, but I am no amateur when it comes to constructing knitted toys and I had real difficulty making head or tail (pun intended!) out of these instructions.  In the end, after tacking it together a couple of times in the way I thought they meant with no success, I gave up and went my own way and ended up doing a fair bit of needle sculpting in order to get the face how I wanted it.  I'm not sure if he is a bulldog or a pug or ET in a collar, but that's the best I could do.  I feel sorry for any complete novice knitter who wants to make a bulldog, because it ain't going to happen!

So I think the way to use this book, lovely as it is to look at, is as a guide only and to continue following my own creativity when knitting dogs.