Updates..... and a bit of crafting =) and trying to draw Miss Peach!

The beautiful leaf colours around tell me that autumn has finally arrived here, yet today was like a spring day. Luvbug and I went off for a bike ride in just jeans, T-shirts and jumpers. -Still no need for coats for jackets.

This time of year has a strange light in the afternoon. It makes the late flowers glow, especially the red hot pokers, which seem to fluoresce.

It was nice to cycle past fields being ploughed- with flocks of gulls following the tractor along. And passing under trees as leaves are shedding and fluttering down.... it was all very Enid Blyton! When we got back, we worked out from the map that we'd done about 8 1/2 miles. That meant huge mugs of tea =)

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Thanks for all the messages! The cold or flu, whatever it was, is out of my system now, I think.

I saw the doc aweek ago to get my test results, which were negative for everything. So no diabetes or any further thyroid problems. Hmmm. No clearer, then, as to weight gain and strange goings on in the running-to-the-loo department. As I had already noticed that wheat and sugar seem to make things worse, Doc advised I try strictly cutting these out.

So this is what I've been doing. I did it successfully for 8 days. I did fell less gurgly, less bloated, and the route to the loo was definitely less trod.

THEN! Oh dear. The "certain-time-of-the-month" demon crept up, whispering into my ear "SHOOOOOOOOOOGAR......SHOOOOOOGAR..... you MUST HAVE IT! YOU MUST!" and so on and so on till I gave in, some time in the middle of Friday night. (Sigh). I made toast- with non wheat bread- but slavered it all over in ginger jam. MmmMMmMMmmMMmm scrummy. Then, after about 15 minutes, it was HEY PRESTO! Gurgle gurgle, then orange poo. WHAT the????? I had to retreat to bed in a jumper and with a hot water bottle, as I was so cold and shivery, too.

Hmmm. A bit of a mystery, yes?

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Here are a couple of Christmas cards I made this week. The poinsettia is an outline sticker, stuck onto coloured paper, then cut out and layered up with silicone glue.
The bear stamp was free with a magazine. Isn't it cute? I coloured it with water-colour pencil, but left a lot of it as pencil rather than wetting it. I love the way the cat is clearly happy, but the bear looks a tad annoyed with having to pull the sledge!
Here are two dragons, stamped and coloured with Promarkers. The larger dragon is a Whiff Of Joy stamp. Not sure about the other, as I bought it used, on Ebay last year. Does anyone know of a "how to" video on Promarkers? I'm sure I could get more out of them than I do, I'm not too good at shading and highlighting at the mo.

Lastly, I'm trying to draw Miss Peach:I'm not completely pleased with it yet, so I'll have another go. But as the first cat portrait I've done in a while, I think it's quite nice =)
I've also been working on tag books and I'm going to do a how-to post on them soon, but I want to send off the one I made for a present first =)

I am definitely in an 'up' in the zig zag at the moment. I am doing so many things all at once!!!

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Hope you're all keeping warm and busy!
We are finally getting our central heating fixed- yippee! They start on 2nd November. This means it will be in by my birthday, the 8th. Luvbug even suggested it could be my birthday present. HAH! Nice try, buster!!!!

My sister

I've mentioned my sister, Christina, from time to time. She emigrated to Australia in 1996 and works in computer animation there. She's 4 years older than me, and was always brilliant at art at school. I remember, when just 14, she drew a big picture of horses running through water. It was perfect- and she did the whole thing in biro! No room for false strokes there!

This cat portrait is her latest. She emailed this to me today and said she did it when she was bored because she remembered that I "strangely like cats". She has offered me the original- it measures 24 inches x 24 inches. YES! YES PLEASE!!

I wish I were as good! Practice, I suppose. But I do feel that it runs in the family from the top down- she's the eldest so she got the biggest dose, then it diluted on it's way down to me!

Fidel the Library Cat

This story and picture are from today's BBC news site. I've copied and posted it here because it made me smile and didn't want you to miss it :)

Fidel

Fidel, an eight-year-old black cat, turns up at Deal library almost every day while his owners are at work.

He spends the day on his favourite blue chair, only leaving the building when he sees his owners arriving home.

Staff say they have never tried to encourage Fidel with food and even used to put him outside when he first began to visit them, but he always came back.

Heather Hilton, district manager for Deal Library, said: "Fidel certainly seems to like coming here and he's very popular with our customers.

"I think he's a bit of an art critic too because we sometimes see him examining the pictures on the gallery wall," she added.

A spokeswoman for Kent County Council which runs the library said Fidel was such a "dedicated customer" that he sometimes arrived before staff and could be found waiting at the front door.

Fidel is a rescue cat, whose owners chose him from a local sanctuary after he was found abandoned in a flat in Deal.

I want to go to Deal library!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 newbies, and a new "Best Cup"

Did these the other day. I've had to break from blogging and crafty stuff for a couple of days because my back has been too bad to sit and type/sprawl an pootle. :^)



I want to be using a more varied spread of materials, and this time I've managed to use some fabric. A Fabric shop in town sells scraps for 10p each, various types and sizes. I bought 5 pieces the other week. The flowery background here is part of one of them.

The bird image is from a sheet from Crafty Individuals- the same one that provided the robin on my last post. They are printed on thick, glossy paper. I've rubbed a nail file round this one and then rubbed a gold ink pad over it. Then I stuck it on a square of blue paper.This glittery bird is from a sheet by K & Co., I think.
Close up of birdy...
All this- especially the fabric- makes it heavier than usual. I used a thick brown card, made by Kraft.

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Here's a very elaborate effort, for my next one. I usually veer towards simpler stuff, I think. But again, I was trying to incorporate more stuff. The angel is, again, from a thick glossy sheet of images from Crafty Individuals. So is the card itself.The image is set with sticky foam pads onto a piece of water-colouring paper, the edges of which I rubbed with a few ink pads, pink, blue and gold. The top triangle is actually a square of card, turned on its side and attached- gold rubbed on the edges again. I wanted to add ribbon, but didn't want it to be even MORE girly with pink or sparkles (!) so used a nice brown one. The 'brad' dragonfly was actually from Tesco!Hmmm... I think this is quite luxurious looking but without being too girly.

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Lastly, here is something I picked up in a Village called Hathersage last week, on my hols in the Peak District.

Hathersage is where the grave of 'Little John', of Robin Hood fame, is buried! I never knew that! We were going to walk up to the graveyard and take a photo, but it was toooo rainy. LOL! SO we browsed the shops instead.

Anyway, here it is. My new "Best Cup". He looks like a tabby I had years ago, called Sam.

Sandpaper Kisses
On a cheek or chin-
That's the way for
a day to begin!

It holds more tea that you'd think, and has a comfy handle, too. Not that that was my chief concern when I spotted it ;^)

Window Shopping

With all the rain (what's that all about?), I can't go wondering around window shopping and coming home with an empty bag of nearly-gots. So I've just been window-shopping on the internet. Do you ever do this? Amazon is great for this because you can set up a wish list and dump all your nearly-gots in there. Then you can go and get a cup of tea and *feel* like you've just done some shopping but you haven't spent anything.

But for tonight, I have had to bookmark places that sell this. It's made by Hampton Art Stamps.

I want this stamp! (Can you see why?!!!)

Cat Oscars!

LOL! Oscars for cats! (What if the cat's name is Oscar?)



Awwwwww....... those two little black and white ones... look just like my old Figs.

A New Look At Cats

Watch this.
Just do.
Watch it.
I don't care if it's 6 minutes long.
It'll be one of your best 6 minutes, I promise.
Oh, and watch out for the yodelling.

She's ok!

Hoorray! Fluffy got the all-clear! The lumps were just 'fatty lumps'. We have to keep an eye on whether they come back bigger or strangely shaped, but otherwise, it's all OK!! We're sooooooooo relieved and happy.

The poor thing had all these staples in her wound: No surprise then, that once they were removed she was singing and running about all over!

She is also getting very cheeky- this is her brother's bed, made from an old computer packing box and lined with an old quilt. We made it for him because he is so enormous we couldn't find a good one in the shops for him..... Fluffu decided that a visit to the vet gave her squatter's rights:
Never mind. Another old cover on a bench in the garden, and Scooter found a nice alternative in the sun:

I'm very happy that my little rogues have survived to purr another day!

Toe Tabby

This postcard came from a friend in Rome.

I love the way cats have no respect for things that we hold in any kind of esteem: the hard-worked flowerbed, the basket of clean washing, the best chair, the hand-embroidered bed cover that's been passed down through the family. To them it's all just a place to relax.

And here. Geography? History? Art? Nahhh..... this toe just fits my shape perfectly, thanks, and the stone makes a cool spot for my afternoon nap. Why? Was there something else?

5 minute sketch

Fluffy is actually a black cat, but it was the expression I was after. To colour it in would have spoiled it. Or put another way, I was just too chicken.

When "real" is too real

I've just realised that, even though I'm not drawing much at the moment, I still look at things with a "sketcher's eye".

Sometimes I'll see something so odd, or so perfect, I know that if I drew it, no one would believe I didn't make some of it up.

Take sunsets, for instance. The other night I watched as the sky out my back window turned into strips of orange, purple and green. There was no "blending" or "bleeding" of one colour into another. Just stripes of bold, glowing colour. If I had painted that, any viewer would have sighed and said, "Hmmm... nice colours. Wouldn't happen like that, though."

Then their companion would chuckle and say, knowingly, "No! A bit of poetic licence, there, I think!"

And yet it WAS like that!

I've experienced the same with pictures of animals. A cat picture can look alluringly tempting to draw, then I realise, hang on, where's his other leg? Tucked under his belly, of course. But it doesn't look ODD in a photo, because the brain accepts it as a true reflection of what was there. In a sketch, though, it might look like I forgot his other leg.

Photography has been around how long? Say, about 140 years, give or take? We giggle at the naivety of the Victorians for being taken in by so-called photographs of ghosts and fairies. But it was a new medium. Our brains are still set-up to accept a photo as true. But we take it further- if it isn't a photo, it might be "wrong": the sunset must be exagerated, or the sleeping cat might be missing a leg.

The cat at the top of this post is lovely, but so perfect it would be difficult to draw faithfully. With his tuxedo, tie and crooked whiskers, he looks like he's been out on the town all night. Never mind. I wanted to share him with you anyway. Hope he makes you smile.

GRACIE

Finally did it!
I thought the tabby pattern would be the biggest challenge but in the end it was the angle of the face that posed most difficulties. I did try sketching in the body too, at first, but it didn't look right at all.

What do I think? It was difficult, and I'm pleased with it. Especially as I had a lovely tabby years ago. But I don't think I've quite got the happy expression, do you? I might do some more work on that left ear... some more shading, I think.

SEBASTIAN

This cheeky puss can be viewed on the following URL:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77821827@N00/258277884/in/set-72157594351293245/

Here is my version:

There are still parts that I'd like to re-do, change slightly, touch up, etc. So I expect I shall return to this one. But I do think I caught a likeness and especially a little bit of his character. This was the most difficult so far but the most enjoyable as returning to his cheeky expression always made me smile.

Here are some step-by-step scans I took as I went along:

- First sketch, trying to get basic outline shape....

...(below) adding some tones/shade...

.........(left) realised at this point that his face was too long so I had to adjust that....

...(below) doing those eyes, and lightening up the jaw line ready for white hair....

...(left) some hair and the collar

(above)...nearly there, but what to do with the white hair on a white background? (At this stage I went out and bought coloured paper for next time. LOL!)

BOO!

I think that kittens are harder to draw for the same reason that I find children harder than adults to draw- the head proportions and feature sizes are all different. Why should this matter when you're drawing from a photo anyway? Don't know. Maybe we're used to the proportions we see in the mirror every day. Anyway, despite this, I thought this would be a good portrait to try because of the different colours in his coat.

What do I think?: I don't like this one much. I think it went flat, the eyes are looking left (how did that happen?!) and I can't do paws (yet?). But it's all good practice. If I say that I just think I chose the wrong photo, is that the same as blaming my tools? I had to decide whether or not to post the ones I'm not happy with here. I decided to. I hope to improve, that's what this is about. How will I tell if I lock away from sight the ones I found unsatisfactory?

JASMINE

This cat's breed is "Egyptian Mau". They are known for having particularly luminous eyes. As to the name, I just thought it suited.

What do I think?: I love it!

TIMMY

We took in a stray kitten and looked after him till a cat sanctuary could rehome him. The new owners called him "Timmy". This isn't him, but it looks a bit like him, hence the name for this portrait.

What do I think?:

I've sketched cats before but not in detail, not in colour and not from photo's. I have only had the confidence before to draw from other people's drawings. I'm pleased with how it came out, especially the eyes. The darkness makes it very 3D. There wasn't enough detail of his body in the photo & I don't feel able to fill that in myself. Too scared to ruin what I have. The confidence thing again!