Look at the find on the beach today....

This little chap was left on the beach when the tide went out.    I didn't personally get to meet it,
Graham was down on the beach with William and Hamish (Hamish told it off, what a brave little dog, mind you he didn't get anywhere near it, so perhaps Not so brave after all).

I thought you would like to see the photos Graham took.

 

Apparently, the best thing to do when you find a stranded seal,

is to leave them alone. 

They rest until the tide comes back in

and then they swim out to sea again.

Brrrr..... it's cold

~ Stay warm and have a good weekend ~

Sorting bookshelves and finding old sketchbooks

I've been busy clearing and sorting things out here.  Firstly the bookcase, why do I hoard books when I've read them?   So, a whole load have gone off to the local Second hand bookshop.

Then, there is my studio space.   Ummm, it seems to be taking a while, wonder why.  I'm lucky to have a good sized space, but as us ladies know with handbags, the bigger they are the more 'stuff' you put in them.  Hence you can imagine the hoarding that has occurred with my Ikea bookshelves.  Yes, I admit it, I have Ikea shelving....shock horror for those who shun such things, but they are REALLY useful.   Trouble is, I keep getting sidetracked and instead of putting things into different groups, like
Keep - Chuck out - Charity shop, I stop to look through things, read them and funny thing is an hour later I haven't made any headway whatsoever, it's like falling down a rabbit hole.   No wonder it is taking so long to sort out.  But regardless, progress is occurring albeit slowly.

Good finds here and there.  I found an old sketchbook, yes another rabbit hole...but was quite pleased to see this little sketch done some time ago and had totally forgotten about it -

and the shelves and boxes are getting there,

at least these are

SORTED....

When watercolour disappears into the paper....

This is something I've covered in my Useful Painting Tips blog, but thought I would add it here too.  This happens particularly with cheap sketchbooks, the paper just isn't up to the job of handling watercolour, it tends to soak into the paper and fade.  That's not to say the sketchbook is no good, it just isn't up to the job of handling watercolour.   It is good enough to use for quick sketches with graphite or pen....here's the link to my Useful Painting Tips blog and the post I did about it

www.usefulpaintingtips.blogspot.co.uk

and here's an example using watercolour in the cheap sketchbook.

Watercolour sort of fades into the paper and doesn't stay clear and crisp, I had to go over this several times even to get it to show up at all.  Plus the paper felt like it had a 'scratchy' surface to paint on.  Why did I buy it - well the obvious is it was cheap in the first place.  So why didn't I avoid it - trouble was it was packaged up, so I couldn't feel the texture of the paper before I bought.

With this next sketch, you can see how the paint fades...

There is always an upside to these things however.  I get to use this sketchbook now for ideas, quick sketches and warmup work....win win.

Honestly, I did sort the fencing out .......eventually!

 

Wall mending

Work has been ongoing at Arlington Court during the Winter months, even when the house and carriage museum are closed.  Volunteers and Rangers have been busy mending and repairing a wall on the Estate, it's just beyond the Monkey Puzzle walk...

We happened along whilst they were taking a break, so I got to take some close up pictures of the work...

Google Street View - the Monkey Puzzle walk....

Kelpies

For some reason recently, I suddenly took it into my head to draw KELPIES.  No idea how that happened or why, perhaps I had heard the word somewhere and it got me thinking.  Reference photos of them below - I would so love to see them, perhaps one day.

Anyhoos, to cut a long story short, I looked them up HERE (click link)

and inevitably

drew them

here....

 ~HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND~

Wordless Wednesday