Hitting The Ground Running...

 Usually January is a dead month for commissions, which isn't a bad thing as it gives me time to get on with my own work for sale and exhibition.  Not this year however - I have two dog portraits to get done by the end of the month with more to come.  The above is one dog of a double portrait, done in Derwent Drawing Pencils on pastel paper.  I'm hoping to make good progress on the other dog this week - the past couple of weeks have been a bit of a nightmare with very little working time to spare.

 The reason being this!  Last year we had a new kitchen fitted...then a couple of weeks later, the housing association thought it a good idea to put in a new boiler (although why it couldn't have been done while the kitchen was gutted is beyond me) which had a flue like this.  Quite an eyesore, looking like a periscope...I was tempted to paint the face of an elephant around it... 
Looks aside, it was a pretty rubbish design too - every time we had heavy rain, which seems to happen a lot over the past few years, the rain water ran straight through the flue which acted like a funnel, through the boiler itself, on to our microwave and eventually on to the floor.  I'd reported it in the summer and it was looked at by three different gentlemen, one of whole walloped some sealant around the join which did nothing.

This Christmas we had rain...a great deal of rain...which resulted in situations like this.  About a litre or more of water running through a working boiler.  More frantic phone calls and we were given the jolly wire waste-paper basket thing around the base of the flue "to deflect the water".  Can you see why this might not work?  The same day the basket was fitted we had another torrential downpour and another bowl of water collected.

Finally we have had a normal flue fitted - it has rained since, but the kitchen remained dry.  So that is one of the things I have been dealing with rather than painting - very frustrating!