Blogging from the ipad

Here we go then..... blogging away the hours. Actually this is a trial ipad blog, seemed to have a bit of trouble last time with it so thought I'd give it another go.

And yes you've seen this one before I know but that's because it's a try out you know !

Well it all seems fine today perhaps in the meantime something happened in the big wide blogosphere -who knows?

Lets see what else I've been up to;the short answer being... not a lot with Horatio now back at work but joining the ranks of my taxi service customers (I give him a discount though) also it's been Easter holidays for offspringwhich sucks up the hours.

Ok so its not fine - I can only get the pictures I've already displayed it seems.

Meanwhile back at the Mac............................

I made some  Easter cards for various family members and there's the little hedgehog eraser - a present from dearest daughter. Its quite effective actually. And if you look carefully you'll see a mug I painted at Emma Bridgewater's painting studio in Stoke on Trent with a picture of Horatio with his sling on... you have to look Very carefully (Yes!You in the back - Put your glasses on!) with whippets!

And then these two little pieces are for a specific project - more about them in time...

 I"ve been trying out ecoline concentrated watercolours and absolutely love them! So I tried them out on my "Dunroamin" picture - I think the bear likes them too.....

 To say nothing of the old hedgehog!

Difficult to stop now........

Ok so I've been a bit slack as usual on the old posting but here we are like buses, two coming along at the same time ( I know - it should be threee but "cuts" are biting...)

I've been doing some drawing out there in the garden, and waiting for my sheds!!! to arrive. Two sheds,one of which is a bee shed! So to make sure it came , I drew it beforehand..........and then I drew it again - mines the one with the bee-suit hanging up.....I'm so glad I managed to get them here now whilst the bees are still hiding from the cold so they didn't want to investigate all that banging and noisy shed installers! Now we don't have to spend our time falling over bits of bee hive and I get a great hide to draw the birds from!

The rhubarb is coming up well - it used to grow in my childhood home, then my father split some for me almost twenty years ago and thats carried on until this year when I split it again. Its like an old friend out there in the garden.

Brookside Farm Book

Sheepdog and conversant sheep.
These were two of the first pictures I did for the book before I got most of the text sent to me.

In the book there's a page where the protagonist has to find something on the messy farm noticeboard:

and this is the other half of the spread...........

                                   








The characters family tree, involving lots of little drawings and anotations..........

 For the very first images in the book I wanted to create a map so as we all knew where we were!
It included  part of a list of jobs that might be carried out by farmers as part of one of the steward ship schemes.

If you remember this book was commissioned by the Area of outstanding natural beauty people in Craven Arms to help build links between the farming community and the rest of the people who live in the area. It was great fun to do and I really hope it works - we al need a little more understanding....