There was a nice surprise in the garden this evening after dinner. I have befriended one of the local phesants. When I go outside to feed the birds she runs up to me and waits for some seed. Well, tonight she brought her seven little ones with her. How cute are these little guys? Very tiny, they are a bit wobbly on their feet. I like the one hiding under the lady's mantle. I think it might be playing hide and seek. The garden is a haven for all kinds of wildlife: voles, foxes, hedgehogs and birds of every kind. The only reason there are no rabbits is because the fence is too narrow for them to squeeze through. But the females phesants have discovered that there is always lots of bird seed. I had started buying a cheaper (or should that be 'cheeper') brand of seed recently but it also had lots of grain in it that the garden birds don't like. The phesants and red legged partridges do like it, however, and come regularly to feed. For some reason the male phesants don't come to the garden very often. I think they may be too fat to get through the fence and too stupid to fly over it.


So, inspired by my little visitors I thought I would post about my altered altoid tin with a bird theme. Made for a swap, it holds some little crafty bits and a mini book. I hope the recipient will like it.





The other two photos are of some pendants I made using some of my own polymer clay beads.

Etsy update

I have added a few new paintings to my Etsy store and cut the prices of one or two of the others. Due to the variations in the difference between the dollar and the pound I can afford to make adjustments every now and then. So if you want a deal on a painting now is the time to do it.

I also have lots of new bead designs that were uploaded over the last few weeks so I hope you'll drop by and take a look.

Challenge Gillian - again

Well, the challenge is still going well. At this rate I will actually have a choice of things to put into the Summer exhibition. This is the first fox I have drawn in a long, long time. The last time I painted one was for my number one fan who later died tragically young. Although I always wanted to do another one I never found the right circumstances where I could do it justice. In short my heart just wasn't in it. I am hoping this one would go down well with my biggest fan.

This woodpecker is actually taken from a book written an illustrated by one of my favourite artists - Elaine Franks. I trawled her book, The Undercliff, hour after hour, dissecting her illustrations and marvelling at her work. My one is a combination of graphite (for the black areas) and coloured pencil. It hasn't scanned quite as well as I had hoped though.
The squirrel is still work in progress and the cat beneath is actually a reworking of an earlier piece I did for Challenge Gillian. I just thought the flower pot and grass added enough to make it a proper picture.