Archie...

Here is a portrait of a little Cairn terrier, waiting now for the portrait of his partner in crime.  This has been executed in Derwent Drawing pencils, but due to the neutral grey of the background which was echoed a great deal in the colour of the dog's fur, I have also used black Chinese brush pen for the deepest darks and white acrylic to make the highlights and white hairs really stand out.  This was quite a difficult one for me because of the background colour, but I am so pleased I persevered as I think it works well.  His little pal is a nice shade of ochre, so should be a lot easier to draw!

Tomorrow is the day of the launch party for The People's Potatoes book.  I have my smart blouse and trousers ready, and am trying to remain calm although I am really quite excited.  You can see the book for sale here - first sighting of it in the market place!  More on the launch after it happens....

Quail

Another Christmas project completed - this quail has been made for a friend of mine.  I've used a cute fabric that looks like newsprint, with various shades of amber and brown for the wing and tail 'feathers'.

I'm slowly working my way through the list of projects to be completed before Christmas - it's not looking quite so daunting any more!

Back to Work....

The first of the Christmas orders is complete - feels like a while since I did one of these.

Always fun to pose them in life-like positions - watch out Mr. Mouse!

I'm having a little difficulty with this - the dog itself is a joy to draw, but the colour of the background is proving troublesome as it is the same tone as a lot of the dog's facial hair.  I'm sure once the whole thing is more established it will be fine......

The People's Potatoes

How amazing to finally see the book I illustrated that has been about three years in the making! I got my copy delivered to me today by the author and it feels very strange to see my work in print - and in such quantity, 100 paintings!

The illustrations have come out extremely well - I can hardly believe that they were my work, it feels such a long time ago that I spent so many hours, weeks, months, painting nothing but spuds!

The book will be available for sale at various outlets, but I will also have a box of them here soon and will have them for sale on my Etsy shop or just e-mail me at the above address.  The book costs £20, plus post and packaging.  More info when the time comes.

Back From Boston....and look what I got!

For a long time I have wanted a Mason drinking jar - don't ask me why, I just fancied the idea of drinking out of a jam jar with a handle.  But they don't exist here in the UK and to get one shipped over from the USA cost silly money.  I even begged a friend to look for one on her trip to San Fransisco earlier this year but to no avail.  So you can imagine how happy I was when we had only been in Boston for a few hours last week and when visiting the supermarket opposite the hotel, discovered this!  It contained stuffed peppers, but they have been decanted into tupperware, the labels carefully peeled from the jar and I can now sit and drink my iced tea from a jelly glass - I'm easily pleased!  Also note the big pile of fabric behind - our hotel was opposite a discount fabric shop so I took the opportunity to stock up - this lot cost me about £18, which is so cheap compared to the UK.

We had a fantastic week in Boston - the weather was glorious as you can see and we did some of this.......

....which was such fun we had to go back at the end of our visit to the aquarium and do it again. The next day we spent whale watching......

...we saw just the one large female hump-backed whale, but she gave us quite a display.

This time we knew where to sit on the boat to get the best view, and even Stacie managed to get an unobstructed sighting.

Well worth the freezing trip back on the boat afterwards!

It being the week before Halloween, there were plenty of pumpkins and decorations to be seen.  Stacie had great fun looking round the costume shops and especially visiting Salem, where there were plenty of these to be seen.....

We felt a bit under-dressed!

We visited Quincy market several times and stuffed our faces with all sorts of dishes, from corn dogs to moussaka....

Hard to find a spare table though, and we had to eat off our laps most of the time.

We also got about 60 reference photos between us of these.....so once the Christmas rush is over (I came back to a slew of commissions - no rest for me between now and Christmas!) there will be some more jellyfish paintings.

Wow!

We have had a pretty good October, lots of warm weather and sunshine, and while it is colder this week and rained this afternoon, we also got treated to this beautiful rainbow.  It stretched round the corner of the house, and was so clear, with another rainbow just visible above it. Let's take that as a good omen for a fun and relaxing half term!

Bluebird......

With a holiday fast approaching, I am letting the arts and crafts slide a little - I'm up to date with the commissions I wanted to get done before I leave, and there are more waiting in the wings for when we return.  I'm currently working on a pair of fabric birds for a friend, which are being made in shades of blue with touches of silver embroidery.  Fortunately no great urgency!

My computer also died on me this weekend after we had a power cut on Saturday afternoon.  I don't know if the power cut was the cause but it's a bit coincidental.  Luckily, a colleague's husband took it away and managed to transfer all my files onto a reconditioned computer which is getting me by, but has meant a lot of re-installing various programmes and it is still not how I want it...but better than nothing!

I'm off to Boston soon, so the blog will go quiet for a bit......any of you Americans know where I would be able to buy a Mason drinking jar?  I'm still hankering after one......