Finally Finished Flamingo...

At last!  With all the hoopla surrounding Christmas and New Year over, I actually had a morning free yesterday to complete this painting.  There are a couple of things I would have done differently, but over all I am happy with it.  Daniel Smith watercolour paint on watercolour paper.  For sale now in my Etsy shop and also as prints on Society 6.

Now it is back to the stack of commissioned work that has been waiting for me!

Flamingo...

I was given a set of the much coveted (by me) Daniel Smith watercolours for my birthday.  They are taking a little getting used to as they don't seem to move around on the paper like my usual watercolours, but I am loving the vivid colours.  I started this painting of a flamingo before Christmas, but with everyone home and the whole hoopla surrounding this time of year, I have not had a chance to continue it.  I'm hoping to get an opportunity very soon - starting to suffer withdrawal symptoms!

Time Out...

A very small chicken...I bought the Mini Mochi book on Monday and this was my first project.  It took about half an hour. 

To escape the building noise, we've been out and about the past couple of days.  Yesterday was an impromptu visit to Bird World in Farnham. I always loved wandering around in there - I love to watch birds and possibly plan new paintings.

Plus there are lots of parrots to feed, stroke and generally annoy.  We fed these two plenty of meal worms - I guess they had to sleep it off!

On the needles....not a whole lot!

Part of the Scenery....

I'm always knitting away for the animated film, but sometimes what I am making is a bit boring and sometimes I'm just not allowed to show you as it will spoil the jokes in the completed film.  However, the past few days it's been about a door....quite a bit of knitting involved to make it large enough for the puppets to use.  Then it needed some 'aging and distressing' with acrylic paint - they've yet to make a yarn in the shade of 'old wood'!

I've also had to make another pampas grass - these are quite labour intensive as the leaves consist of casting on then casting off, followed by being draped over a wine bottle while soaked in fabric stiffener.  The seed heads are made with some fabulous Gypsy eyelash yarn - now very much out of production and I don't know what I am going to do when my meagre stash runs out!

I'm also knitting various pot plants - coming up is quite an exciting subject, a bird which needs to be animated flying - gulp!

Talking of birds, I finally have my dream....a large flamingo ornament for the garden.  I don't know what it is about me that hankers after  kitsch Americana, but along with the Mason jar drinking mug, a flamingo lawn ornament was pretty high on my list of wants.  Our local garden centre brought in some metal ones - not quite the genuine article but very pretty all the same and I love it!  Now the plants are putting a spurt on, the garden is beginning to come together at last.

Pretty Flamingoes...

Well, the gnome bracelet didn't last long in my shop - nice to know I'm not the only one who loves a bit of kitsch to wear!  There will be more for sale very soon.  In the meantime, I have made this flamingo bracelet in the same style.  I have had the beads for ages but couldn't think how best to use them - this method seems to work well.

It fastens with a sweet vintage button.

This will be the only one of these for the time being - run out of beads!  If you are interested, it is in my shop now.

Boxing Day.....

Boxing Day is my favourite day of the holiday period - the pressure has gone, Christmas Day has passed successfully, we eat leftovers in Bubble & Squeak for dinner, we get to play with our new toys, and all is calm.

I managed to finish the chicken hat, after adding a couple of little extra touches that weren't in the pattern - the red embroidery around the eyes and beak.  It is also lined with black felt to prevent an itchy head.  The recipient is very pleased with his gift and threatens promises to wear it today. (What have I done?)  As said recipient is still asleep, the hat is modelled here by Rowdy, the stuffed dog that lives on the back of our sofa.

Another thing we do on Boxing Day which has become a bit of a tradition in our house is to go and have a look at the sales in a neighbouring town.  We never buy anything in particular, but I always like to visit Paperchase and pick up my cards and tree crackers at half price in readiness for next year.  It's the only pre-Christmas shopping I am ever organised enough to do....

I generally find some other glittery tat that tickles my fancy - this year it's a silver sparkly plastic flamingo.  She already looks very at home on the little table under a pot plant.

It's also the day to make a start on the Christmas cake...........yum!

Wash and Wear

The flamingo t-shirt was finished yesterday and it was with great trepidation I washed it this morning - I half expected to see three days work melt into a swirl of pink water.  However, the Inktense colours stayed fast and it looks the same now as it did before it's dunking.  For a first time, it's not too bad - perhaps next time I would plan the composition a bit better.  There were supposed to be two flamingoes on this one but I couldn't find a photo in a pose I liked for the second one, so for the time being there is just the one.  I can always paint another one in later.

Do you think this is an idea that would appeal - customised hand-painted t-shirts?  It doesn't have to be flamingoes!  If you'd like one, feel free to gt in touch.

A Good Day....

Sometimes a day is just packed full of good things, like....

...our first trip of the year to the pick-your-own fruit farm and several pounds of fragrant red strawberries waiting to be turned into jam.  The best ones will be saved just for eating with cream or on pancakes.  As we are being brought some clotted cream from Devon tomorrow (thank you Midge!), I predict a cream tea with scones and fresh jam in the afternoon....mmmmm.....

We also bought fresh gooseberries, new potatoes, carrots and blueberries. Gooseberry crumble for pudding today!

I discovered this a few feet from our patio doors, tucked into the kiwi vine above our pergola.  We watched this nest being built a week ago and it was incredible how quickly the pair of blackbirds achieved it - just under two days.  However, they disappeared for the rest of the week and we thought they had come to their senses.  Today I could hear magpies cackling in the back garden and that usually means they are on the prowl waiting to kill something, so I went out to chase them off and checked above my head...there she was.  I think I might have blinded her as the flash was on for the first picture I took - hope that doesn't scare her off the nest.

I do wonder what goes on in their heads though - a couple of weeks ago their first batch of chicks fledged and I am sad to say my dog managed to kill one of them.  He found it in the geraniums and grabbed it, dropped it immediately when I yelled at him but the poor thing died of fright, much to my horror - right under where the new nest is.  So either blackbirds are incredibly stupid or there is a sub-plot whereby they are rubbing my nose in it and planning their revenge. I've watched 'The Birds' many times, I've seen what they are capable of....

I've been coveting a t-shirt I saw on Threadless a while back that had a pair of flamingoes on the front but was put off buying it by the price and postage.  It took a while for the penny to drop that a) I am an artist, b) I possess Inktense colour blocks that are colourfast on fabric (let's face it, I now have three boxes of the things!) and c) I could buy a plain white t-shirt for the princely sum of £4 on which to paint a flamingo of my own.  So here it is, half done and even if it goes horribly wrong, it can still be worn for slobbing round the house.

Other good things today...getting all the week's washing done and dry before it rained; having a cup of tea outside in the sun with a friend before it rained; managing two dog walks without getting rained on; bacon butties for lunch and having a peaceful afternoon.

Mini Flamingo!

Well, you all know my weakness for flamingoes - I've painted them many times and named my Etsy shop after them - so when I came across a Japanese pattern book that included a tiny felt flamingo, it just had to be mine.


I thought this would be fairly easy to make as it didn't have too many pattern pieces, but in actual fact it took me roughly five hours as it was extremely fiddly. It only stands 5 inches tall, so you can imagine the thickness (thinness!!) of the legs, neck and beak. I also preferred to add a few of my own touches - the black end to the beak, embroidered 'toes', and I have omitted the wire from the legs as I always like my little creatures to be as child friendly as possible.

This will be going on to Etsy within the next couple of days after I have decided whether or not to attach a chain or ribbon in order for the mascot to hang...perhaps I will allow the customer to choose.

Next on the agenda is a kangaroo.....with a pouch....with a baby joey inside....eeeeeee!!!

Thank You Ikea!

Let's start with another flamingo - I wanted to paint one in watercolour, very simply and cleanly, and this is the result. Sometimes I prefer a non-fussy painting. I think this may be the last flamingo for a while.....or maybe not, I still have a few ideas in my head for those lovely reference photos.

Now prepare yourselves for a pretty awful sight - it's not something I'm proud of and I know I am not the tidiest person but this really is dreadful!


This is how the dining half of my kitchen has looked for a while now....we haven't been able to sit down to a meal at the table for....oh, I don't know how long - at Christmas I had to move all my craft boxes into the hall and bedroom in order for us to have a semblance of a civilised meal together. I knew what I wanted to do with it but never had the time what with the day job and those darned potato paintings. However, after a day of building my set of Billy bookcases, another day of moving everything out including that (very heavy) dresser and putting everything back again into the new shelves, and a couple of hours this morning for the final touches, it now looks like this -


It's not totally finished yet - there are still a few things to the left that need to have homes found for them, and under the table are a couple of boxes of photos and paperwork that need sorting out, but I think you'll agree it is 100% better. There is even a whole shelf and a half that need to be utilised properly - either that or it's an excuse to get some more books!

While sorting through the dresser drawers I came across a couple of little treasures I had lost - nothing valuable but they mean a lot to me.


My maternal grandfather was a sea-captain in World War I and I was always told the tale by my mother that he had travelled to the South Sea Islands and brought back this bag of cowrie shells that were the currency of the island he had visited. I don't know any more than that, but I used to run my fingers through this bag of shells when I was a child imagining where they had come from, who had touched them and how far they had travelled. I still do!


In 2000 I took my children to St. Lucia for a week's holiday - we were even poorer then than we are now, and I used some small savings to take them somewhere special as my son had just left school and it would probably be the last family holiday we would take. I found an amazing deal on Teletext (never to be repeated!) and off we went and had an amazing time on very little money indeed - we ate at KFC or made sandwiches from stuff we bought at the supermarket, and used what spare money we had to take a trip to the rainforest and see as much of the island as we could on a budget. When we boarded the return flight, the above is the exact amount of money we had left....64 Caribbean cents, which I think is about half that amount in US$. If there had been the Icelandic volcano back then, we would have starved to death!

Don't forget the giveaway - it will run until the end of August.

Pretty Flamingoes!

Finally finished this - it took a very long time, partly due to the subject matter and partly due t0 sheer exhaustion at the end of term. It is painted in acrylics on a stretched canvas - not my favourite of surfaces, but I had one that needed using up! I used a compilation of photographs kindly given to me by Alison as reference....I have a feeling a couple may be the same bird in different positions, but hey, a flamingo is a flamingo is a flamingo!

Not too sure what to paint now - I've been let down recently regarding a few prospective commissions, so I guess it's time to get some private work done for future exhibitons. I do wish that people had the courtesy to get in touch if they change their minds about commissioning a painting - it seems to be quite a common consensus that being an artist isn't a serious job, just something we dabble in, and that we don't depend on the income generated by our daubings. On the contrary - if you are counting on three commissions over the coming month and they all disappear, that is quite a chunk of money to miss out on. This is the main reason I can't afford to give up the day job!

While I'm on the subject, another thing that really gets me mad is the intake of breath when you tell someone the price of something you have created/are about to create. If you calculate the cost of materials, time taken, as well as the knowledge and expertise involved, I think you'll find that a great many artists and craftspeople work for far below minimum wage per hour. I could rant on, including the cavalier attitude some companies and individuals have towards paying for artwork on time.....but I won't! Suffice it to say, the image of a starving artist in a garret isn't too far removed from the truth on occasion!!

.....and relax!

Just to let you know, the next post will be containing a give-away - he's all ready, sitting on the desk waiting for his photo to be taken......

Flamingo Update & a Retrospective......

Warning: if you are easily offended by the human body with no clothes on, you'd better not scroll down any further......not that there is anything visible to be offended by, but just in case.........


No, no naked bodies hidden in this painting! At last I'm able to put a bit of work in on this and now have the final composition more or less how I want it. The top section of the painting is still only blocked in and the rest of it still needs work on the water and the rocks, but at least I can finally see where I'm going with it. It has a bit of an other-worldly feel to it, but that was part of the appeal of the photographs I am using for reference - I liked the shapes and the colours more than the ornithological viewpoint!

With it being the summer holidays, I am taking the opportunity to clear up the house a bit. While pootling about yesterday I came across a couple of paintings I did several years back that I really like. I have always wanted to take part in a life drawing class but have never had the opportunity, so these were created using my faithful 'Anatomy for the Artist' book which has loads of beautiful and very useful photographs.


This was drawn using some Caran D'Arche water soluble pigment sticks - terrific for larger work and you can draw, shade, then move the pigment about with a wet paintbrush and the colour remains vibrant throughout. It's quite a large piece of work for me and not my usual style, but I had great fun with it and wish I could find him a good home - he is available for sale if you are interested - just get in touch!


This was a combination of methods, a bit of an experimental piece. I used real leaves as stencils, also painting the veins for imprinting. The man is drawn and painted, and there is liberal spattering of paint. This was painted in yellow and purple watercolour only. As with the above painting, he is available for sale if you are interested.

I'd like to do more work like this, but it didn't seem very commercial at the time - what do you think?

More........

Five days to go until the summer fair at work and I wish I could knit faster! So far, I have produced the above little fellas.....let's face it, there aren't going to be many more made within that time limit!


The little dog may look familiar - I loved the replica Tibetan terrier I made a while ago so much I had to make another one. The cat is the smallest so far, having been knitted in fine sock yarn on No.2 needles - I'm very pleased with how he has turned out though. He stands 3 inches tall and I am in the process of sewing a little felt bed for him. Not too sure how happy the dog is at having a cat rub itself under his chin like that - talk about invasion of personal space....


So with the 5 commissioned cats plus all the other creatures awaiting sale, the desk is looking like a mini animal shelter!


Here is another peek at the progress of the flamingo painting. All those rocks...it's very slow going! I also have to admit there was not much forward planning put into this one, I'm kind of going with the flow and hoping it all turns out OK in the end.

Had to laugh yesterday - I don't know if you remember the tizzy I got myself into last year searching for brushes I liked? Well, I went in the new Poundland store in our town yesterday and saw a collection of 4 synthetic, 4 hair & 4 bristle brushes for the grand total of £1. I thought, what the hell, if they are rubbish it's only £1 wasted and I can use them for masking fluid or varnish. Turns out they are absolutely brilliant. Just goes to show....not too sure what, but it does....

Keeping Busy........

This is just a little corner of my current painting - the main feature is flamingoes. As it's an acrylic and on a fairly large canvas, it is slow going but really enjoyable. I'm just hoping I can finish it before the next couple of commissions come in!



Just discovered there is a summer fair at work next week - so I'm trying to dash off a few of the dog and cat sets before then. Mr. Fuzzy here now needs a bed.....

Finally Finished..

Spent a day or so re-working this as I just didn't like it before. This is as far as it goes for this painting - time for something else now.

More Flowers!

As you can see, I'm just churning the flowers out at the moment!
Firstly, there is another daisy-chain necklace - different to the other one as I don't have any more of the thin, smooth white felt I used before and can't find any similar. Goodness knows where it came from! So as a result, the daisies in the second necklace are slightly larger as the felt is fatter, which means there are two less of them. Just as much work involved though! Price, same as before £20 + P&P

Secondly, I have made a brooch and the flower this time is called Cosmos. I grew a big patch of these last year in the garden and they are simply beautiful with their tall stems, delicate lacy green leaves and myriads of cup shaped flowers in various shades of pink. I spent many hours painting and sketching them last summer. The brooch just has the one bloom, embroidered in pink and three leaves. £5 + P&P

I'm not too sure if there will be any more flowers for a couple of days - my SO is coming home tonight for the weekend so I doubt I'll be spending my time sewing!

I'm in the process of re-working the flamingo painting - I simply hated the background and was not happy to leave it that way so there has been some serious over-painting going on. Watch this space...

Flamingoes again....

This is what I've been working on for the past couple of weeks or so. It's based on a load of photographs I took during a visit to Birdworld, Farnham a while back. It's painted in acrylics on canvas and a bit of a change in direction for me - not sure I like it to be honest. Let me know what you think, and in the meantime I'm going back to the safety of painting zebras for a while....

Pink Flamingo Umbrella & Last Chance for Giveaway

You only have until the end of the day to enter my 200th Post Giveaway - leave your name and I'll pick a winner of a mystery gift at the end of today.

I spent yesterday turning a pink umbrella into a flamingo! I saw the method in a magazine a while back but it needed a pure white umbrella and I had nowhere to get one from. Then by chance in our local cheap & cheerful store I found a perfect pink umbrella for a ridiculous £3.

So I spent Saturday painting the handle to look like this -


Then I made two feather stampers out of thin foam and cardboard and yesterday decorated the fabric to look like this -


The whole thing has turned out really well - I think it is such a cute idea. Trouble is, the rain has stopped and the sun is shining......but this is Britain, I'm sure we'll be back to wet weather soon enough.


If you'd like an umbrella like this, let me know - but quickly as there were only a couple of them left in the shop.

I'm nearing completeion of the latest painting - also flamingoes. I don't know, these obsessions tend to creep up on me - I'll be dressing in pink and standling on one leg in a puddle next....

Frog & Flamingo

No, not some new yuppy pub but my new necklaces. First is a wonderful hand-made glass bead with a little tree-frog from Clearly Glass hung on an antique-look chain with some green lampwork glass beads and antique-look leaves. I've had this bead for a long time but never known how to utilise it to it's best advantage - hopefully this has done the trick! £20 + p&p

Second is a little set involving pink glass flowers, AB coated green glass beads and some vintage brass charms - a flamingo and palm trees - on an antique-look chain. The bracelet is simple with the flowers and chain. Has a 'Florida' feel to it - that's my theory anyway! Necklace £16 + p&p, bracelet £7 + p&p