Finished Ducky and feeling old.

Ducky is finished! I am surprised how much quicker it was working on black paper - even though I didn't really know what I was doing LOL. I did him much faster than usual so perhaps I will use a black surface again sometime.

Yesterday while walking we saw a heron, he flew in to land quite near us (sadly not close enough for a photo) and a group of about twenty deer moving across the forest in the distance.

Today is my birthday and after a hectic week I am feeling old, but not as old as I will next year when it is the big five zero! I opened some presents yesterday as I was out to lunch with friends - what a lucky girl I am. Three pretty tee shirts, a 'Radley' purse, David Gray cd, Winnie the Pooh socks (no, I will never grow out of Pooh), a book (about a dog of course), a beautiful orchid and a book token. Then I have more to open today, a luscious chocolate cake and a celebration this evening!

Next week I am planning a trip to look for a new camera, perfect timing for a birthday present to myself!

Now here is my completed little duck, quite nice I think. I now have to get down to planning my next piece, I am going to attempt elephants! This will be on mountboard - you remember I bought some this week - and will be larger than usual so I will have take photographs rather than scan it for the w.i.ps.

Nice weather for ducks

Taivas & I had another wet walk in the forest yesterday morning, with Mary and her flatties, Raffles & Missy. We went to Pig Bush, always one of my favourite walks so it was pleasant despite the rain but I couldn't take any photos! Still I suppose that saved me some editing and flickr-ing time and gave me more time to spend on Ducky. I did get quite a lot done yesterday so I'm hoping you'll be impressed - LOL - though I think the hardest part is yet to come so I could still ruin him! I've begun to add a soft, blended background - I hope I'll be able to deepen the colour of this a bit more.

Little duck progress

I didn't have much time for art yesterday, having had training with Taivas, then being out and about in the afternoon - returning my daylight lamp, very annoying. And it has to go back again, when we got it home we quickly discovered (despite trying it briefly in the shop), that it had the same fault as the first! I did manage to make some art purchases while I was out though so all was not lost. LOL I have bought some mountboard in several different colours and sizes, I know a couple of artists who never use anything else. I'm looking forward to trying it, maybe even for my very next piece which will have an African theme!

When we eventually got home I HAD to do some proper, paid work! Without my little bookkeeping job I couldn't buy my art stuff, do any dog shows, go to concerts etc etc.
Oh, and yesterday I had one of my Flickr photos go into the top 500 for the day it was posted! My first one for ages to make it. (Flickr has nearly 500,000 photos added daily, so the top 500 is quite nice, though not necessarily an indication of quality, more that the photo has great appeal or is unusual in some way)

Now here's 'Ducky' stage two, he's improving I think. I wanted to tackle his rock fairly early on as I wasn't confident about doing it, but I'm ok with how it's turned out. Not brilliant and I don't have the wet sheen that it has in the photo, but I hope it does look like a rock!

Hello Ducky!

I made it to the forest in the pouring rain! My girls enjoyed themselves, both coming home exceedingly dirty and in need of a hose down.

The wet weather brings me nicely on to my next project - Ducky - which I started a couple of days ago. A bit of a departure from my usual work, I am attempting a piece on black paper. I'm not at all sure at this stage that it's going to work, purely because I don't think I'll get the depth of colour I like. Other artists work looks amazing on black paper, they obviously know something I don't!
Ducky was a dear little Ringed Teal that lived with his missus next door to me. Sadly they were both killed, probably by cats, within a few weeks of each other at the end of last autumn.

Here is the first stage and you will see what I mean about the colour!