Christmas cards

I haven't sent Christmas cards for a number of years. My husband and I have sort of opted out of Christmas. This year, however, I decided to send a few hand-painted Christmas cards. My first attempts were done using those purpose-made watercolour cards. I was so worried about ruining them, however, that I didn't enjoy it and ended up not liking the results much. So they went in the bin.

I decided to just start painting some small card-sized paintings on larger pieces of ordinary watercolour paper, not worrying about how they turned out, so I could just use the ones I liked. This was a lot more fun! Here are the results. I like some more than others, and I didn't use all of them. I had fun doing it though, and it was nice to be able to put something of myself into the cards I sent to family members.

From the photo "Coal tit - Switzerland" by crackers93

From the photo "Great Tit (Parus major)" by Max xx

From a photo by mustcreate in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From a photo by lisilk in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From a photo by PETERH in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From a photo by Dilettante Dave in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From the photo "Robin" by thetelf

From a photo by Ceiliog in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From a photo by Yorky in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From my imagination :-)

Landscape sketching practice

I'm trying to learn to do simple ink and watercolour sketches of landscapes. Here are a couple of practice sketches from photos. The first one is from a reference photo on Wetcanvas.com (uploaded by ICanDoIt) and the second from my own photo. Simplifying while still keeping interesting composition and colours is proving a challenge.

Plein air sketching

Off and on I've been trying to do plein air ink and watercolour sketching. So far I haven't been exactly ecstatic with the results, but I'm getting better and that's what matters to me. One of the reasons I want to improve (and be less frustrated) is so that I can go out sketching while my husband does his macro and bird photography. We are lucky to have several lovely parks nearby with some beautiful scenery - lots of sketching potential!

I'm still working on a painting kit so I have a convenient setup including paint, brush(es), water, etc. When I sketch outdoors I'm usually sitting on a walkstool with all my stuff in my lap. I've got my eye on the Winsor Newton Field Plus box. I've got the pocket box but those clipon water pots look good. I've been using a waterbrush but just got a retractable travel brush. I used it for the first time last weekend and found it a lot easier to control the paint and water, but I had to set the water pot on the ground and it wasn't very convenient. Here's my effort from our walk in Dinton Pastures on Saturday morning.

EveryDay Matters Challenge #185 - Draw a Cat

I've never had a cat and generally I'm not too fond of them, being a bird lover. One of my pet peeves is neighbourhood cats coming into our garden and lying in wait for the birds at our feeders. So far there haven't been any murders (that I know of), but anytime I see a cat in the garden I chase it away if I can. I guess it's too much to hope that they'll learn they're not welcome here!

I don't hate cats, really. Sometimes they can be pretty, or cute. I remember my grandmother's Burmese cats and how I was fascinated by them as a child. They were very aloof if they didn't know you, but I thought they were beautiful and mysterious.

This pencil drawing is based on a lovely Flickr photo by duluoz_cats.

EDM Challenge #184 - Draw a Bench

This is the bench on our patio right outside our back door. It's a nice place to sit and look at the garden, and we also use it to rest and take off our boots after a walk with the dogs. The wall is actually straight, not curved. ;-) While I was sketching it was very windy and cold, and started to rain. This is August???

I'm still trying to sketch something every day, but I haven't done much that is postable because I've been spending more time on watercolours. I know they say watercolours are challenging, but for some reason I didn't think it would be quite so difficult. When I painted in the past it was acrylics, and watercolour is a completely different animal. I'm having fun though, splashing the paint around and going through various books and videos. Hopefully before too long I'll have something I like well enough to post. In the meantime, I'll keep sketching. :-)

A garden for birds

Over the last couple of years my husband and I have tried to make our tiny little garden a bit of a haven for wildlife, especially birds. Here is the state of it currently.

That's my view out the kitchen window. It makes doing the washing up a lot more fun as I watch the birds come and go. In a typical morning I'll see goldfinches, chaffinches, maybe a greenfinch or two, blue tits, great tits, sparrows, magpies, blackbirds, collared doves, wood pigeons, and my favourite, the robin.

Robbie the robin has been visiting the garden for a couple of years for the live mealworms we supply. He has his own private supply that larger birds cannot get to. If his dish is empty he'll come to the top of the little shed next to the kitchen window to see if I'm in there. A couple of times last year he actually flew into the kitchen through the open door.

Below is a young robin that we think is probably one of Robbie's offspring, raised on the mealworms provided by us!

We also feed the hedgehogs, and enjoy sitting in the garden on summer evenings after dark watching them squeeze under the garden gate and make a beeline for the hedgehog food. Haven't had the time to do that much this year but last year one night we saw SIX hedgehogs in the garden at one time. During the day the magpies eat the leftover hedgehog food (it's dry food, called Spike's Dinner).

The young magpie above is trying to work up the nerve to duck under the cover to steal some hedgehog food.

Welcome to my Blog!

EDM Challenge #178 - Something Red, originally uploaded by Sarah__M.

Thought I'd join in the fun since nearly everyone else on the EveryDay Matters group has one.

I hope to use this blog in particular to document my art journey but it will probably turn out to be a collection of random thoughts and events.