Halfway Horse....

Today saw the completion of half of the double horse portrait - I'm very pleased with how he has turned out, the sunshine on the righthand side of his face really gave some lovely contrasts which worked well when drawn. Now I have to sit with tracing paper and the grid system and work out the enlargement of the other horse from a much smaller photograph - no easy way of doing this I am afraid.


Last night I finished a complicated cotton top that I have been knitting for the past three weeks. I unravelled a jumper I made several years ago that I no longer wear and re-knitted it into this empire line top. This pattern was a bit of a puzzle to decipher - for some reason instead of using the international knitting symbols on the chart, the designer had used letters of the alphabet...and printed really small. Added to this was the fact it was knitted in the round and they omitted to say a purl row had to be made inbetween the lace rows - anyone new to knitting would have got in a terrible muddle.

But it got done successfully and now I am waiting for it to dry (hence it lying on a towel on the floor) so that I can wear it before the weather gets too cold.

First Feather

I just couldn't wait any longer - the horse went on hold for an afternoon and I drew/painted this using very sharp pencils and a brush with about three hairs in it. Great fun but not as perfect as I would like, but I guess you can't run before you can walk with things like this! The drawing is about two inches long, slightly bigger than the actual feather.

Now back to the horses as commissions are starting to stack up - woo-hoo!

F is for Fish...

I omitted to say yesterday that I bought two books, not just the natural history drawing book, but also a rather nice Amigurumi pattern book.


This was one of my favourite little creatures, so I crocheted my version of him last night, leaving off the extra knitted scales which made him look like he was wearing a nasty overcoat, and giving him proper fixed teddy eyes rather than stick-on googly ones. I've popped him on a little keychain to hang from a bag, zipper, or whatever.

He won't be going into the Etsy shop - the postage would cost more than he would - but if you would like to own him, or one similar in a different colour, do get in touch.

Horse Feathers!

I took my son up to the town today to pick up his photos (yes, he came back from Borneo safe and sound with tales to tell) and went with him into the bargain bookstore. I didn't intend to buy anything but found this book I had been eyeing up in an art magazine a few weeks ago and it was half price - say no more!


At lunchtime when I was poring through it, I was most impressed with the pages on how to draw feathers - something I lack the patience to draw or paint in such fine detail. After lunch, I took the dog for a walk and found this........


I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something? Unfortunately, today I have to get on with this.......


It's not unfortunate at all - I'm really enjoying it and getting paid into the bargain. The universe will have to wait for it's feather painting.....

Shop Update!

Oops! Totally forgot I had to make the bowl and toys for these two - now the sets are complete and they are going into Etsy ready for adoption.

Who's This?

Deep in the undergrowth, something stirs and peeks out between the leaves.....


....it's another one of those flowery dinosaurs! A triceratops this time, sewn in a lovely pink and green upholstery fabric with a pattern of leaves and roses.


This fabric (and I have quite a lot of it) has been lurking in my craft supplies for years - so long that I am not even sure where I obtained it from. It's been used for cushions, lampshades, bag linings, and now a dinosaur. The horns, spikes, belly and soles of the feet are green felt and she has safety backed green eyes.


The legs are sewn in place - until I get a really long needle (Do they make them about 4 inches long? Do tell me if you know!) all the legs on these dinosaurs will have to be fixed in place, but that doesn't detract from their appeal.

This young lady will be going into my Etsy shop very shortly.

Whilst in the garden, I realised that with the nights getting chillier it was time to pick all the grapes from my vine. After getting the step ladder and picking through all the leaves to get every last bunch, I was amazed at just how many there were.


I weighed them, and with taking off a bit for the bowls, there are approximately 10 lbs (5 kilos) here! I've decided it's going to be grape jelly, not the wine with this lot - at least with jelly I know what I am doing.

While I was doing this, someone was watching intently.......


....I actually caught him sitting on the top of a mound of grapes picking out the bugs, but when he saw me and my camera he flitted on to the washing line.

- O-

For the past fortnight, my son and his girlfriend have been in Borneo. I've tried really hard to be sanguine about this and not worry, but I can't deny I'll be glad when they get home tomorrow. I wonder if he managed to find any beads..........

Traditional Methods

When I am painting or drawing a commission, I want to have the proportions absolutely accurate in order for the finished picture to be as close a resemblance as possible. This can prove a little tricky when you have two photographs to use as refererence of differing sizes. In this instance, I use the grid method. This involves taping a piece of tracing paper over your photograph and drawing a pencil grid, beginning from the bottom left corner to the top right corner. Here I have only drawn the grid on the section of the photograph I want to enlarge on to my paper.


On a larger piece of tracing paper, using the first diagonal in the smaller grid as a starting point to judge the correct angle, I draw a corresponding larger grid. If this was for an acrylic or to be transferred on to white paper, I would draw this grid lightly directly onto the paper. However, this picture is on green pastel paper and will be using Derwent Drawing pencils which unfortunately do not cover graphite even if it has been rubbed out thoroughly. So I had to use the large tracing paper and then draw in the basic outlines of the horse's head using the grid to place everything - remember those old puzzle books as a child where you had to draw the other half of a picture using a square grid?


I had to try an ancient method of transferring the outline - using a needle I made holes along each and every line.


The holey paper was then taped into the correct place on the pastel paper.


I then scraped a pastel into a small bowl in order to make some dust.


This pastel dust was then brushed through the holes using a fairly stiff hog hair paintbrush. At this point I remembered why I don't use pastels any more as my hands began to itch and my throat started to hurt and close up.


I lifted the paper very carefully and beneath was a pastel outline of the horse. I drew over this outline using a neutral ochre Derwent pencil.



With a soft brush, I dusted away the pastel residue and was left with......


...enough of an outline to then make the initial sketch of the horse, safe in the knowledge that everything was in the right place and in the right proportions.

This whole process took an hour and a half. Despite being very tedious, it is well worth it in the long run - better than getting a freehand sketch wrong, rubbing it out and making a mess on an expensive piece of paper!

Now I'm off to scrub my hands!