New painting and no cooker

I painted this in acrylic on canvas after getting annoyed at the no show of my new cooker . I have to wait another 6 weeks ! for it , someone forgot to order it . they gave me the delivery date too , i moved kitchen cupboards , nearly took the old cooker out but didnt , luckily . sigh . at least it should be worth all the fuss . so for now , still no photos of my garden , but i did do this

VULTURE !!

title Chaos Range Master

Not quite there yet

Im still having severe pain problems which sapps my will to do anything else so im struggling again but things are growing which is exciting too . The Courgettes sprouted , big fat seed leaves  , i love them . Sweet peas are climbing , indoors , tomatos peppers , spring onions , lettuce  all doing well and garlic potatoes and peas went outside . The chives look like a grass mat and everything is getting on with it ;-)) photos soon i hope .   we are still having night frosts and will be untill the start of may so ive a long wait before all my seedlings can be sent outside to manage alone  which gives me a great excuse for leaving them inside the house to potter with .  The only thing that hasnt sprouted yet is the Squash Honeybear , ill give it another week and then sow some more seeds and try again , i know some seeds can be really slow to get the idea of growing right .
Right now eating healthy is on my mind because not only is my underwear feeling the strain but i had luch in an all you can eat chinese today . Absolutely delicious , very cheap and fattening ! yes i did have the sweet and sour sauce on fried chicken . sigh .
I also went to the art shop and bought some canvas panels and a new paintbrush . This morning i sketched out a new small canvas    , im going to be painting a Northern Lynx , ive never done one before . This particular one i watched on a snowy day and it was really enjoying the cold  , relaxed and happy animal it was a pleasure to watch .  My reference photo shows it at full streatch with all the delicious belly fur for me to paint , i love that bit :-) it has H U G E feet too .

WRONG PILLS

Ok , i havnt been writing because I was given pills for my pain which ended up sending me into severe depression for days . Bad bad bad . Stopped the pills , the pain is better then that . Getting well is hard . everytime i try to sort one thing it affects all the rest . AAGH .
 Im back though .   A trip to the wildlife park soon made me feel better , the weather is wonderful , the animals were great and i got plenty of new reference . perfect . That was yesterday . Today ive been in the garden planting up the new fruit trees and sorting out the borders and the weather is STILL great , maybe we have spring at last ?? some daffodils would be nice :-)

This is a Pallas cat from Mongolia :-) one of the photos from the wildlife park trip .

Warm bread rolls

yum....

I tought my daughter to bake , she loves the smell of it , she loves getting sticky and she loves making her own food , so we baked fresh white bread rolls so we can eat them for breakfast .

We ate one hot from the oven  with real butter and it was delicious , better than fresh from the swiss bakers she said .

She made this bead heart for me . This is the new bread bin it was bought in a sale and when you take the lid out and turn it over its a bread board , cool eh !

I sowed four types of pepper , two sweet , two hot to see what performs best . Im lookign foreward most to one of the sweet ones its supposed to be really long , sounds good ! The potatoes arnt doing much in the way of sending out shoots but its early days yet .

Nasturtian seedlings popped out today :-)

Sweet peas are shooting up ! look at this fella

Ive been painting too

 slowly but surely getting there

My studio heating . Not kidding :-) Snow on the ground again this morning .

Hyacinths and snow cats

My hyacinth is nearly there , we hav snow again outside but warmth and light insode so they have been quietly getting on with it and it wont be long untill i get the scent from them

My geraniums have perked up too , ive been moving them into the sun , when we havei t , and some weeks back i gave them a light feed . It did them a lot of good ..

The seeds havnt done much except steam up the propegator , who knows what they are up to tucked up in there . But no signs of growth yet .

On the work side , im slowly dressing my cat . Many many layers will end up on the fur getting finer and finer untill it achieves real depth and looks right .

This is the other painting im working on right now  .  It started in acrylics but it progressed to oils , im feeling the urge to work on the rocks soon  as a change from the fur .

work at last

Proof i actually did something today :-)  fuzzy feet on my snow leopard .

A bit of leg

Balcony end of January

break time i was in this chair 20 seconds after the photo , coffee was lovely

Husband making drainage holes

My best friend :-)

Overwintered Geranium

repotted plants

Spring fresh green

Painting day

Last night i got inspired to paint ,thanks Clive , so today i defrosted the studio , fortified myself with caffiene and went to paint . I gave myself eye strain dehydration and possible frostbite but im getting the Leopards legs on albiet slowly . at least this time my paint is not frozen . This seriously happened a few weeks back .  The mouth looks wonky , the colours look wrong and its mostly naked and looks motheaten but this wont last ! this is how messy my work looks when its creating itself .  I know when a picture starts to work when i walk by it and say hello cat but it isnt at that stage yet . Maybe when i have got its leg onto the next layer it might be . I didnt want to stop . The reason the cat looks more brown than grey is because im working from two references of the same cat on the same day , one is brown , one is grey , im working to what i know is the correct colouration . Wait and see :-) This is a female Snow Leopard  she is looking towards the male which was way off left when i watched them .

A few other photos from today The 30 seconds of sunshine

Snow clouds behind the trees . After dark there was a sprinkling of snow on my balcony :-)

Drawing day

This morning was a housework morning as they all are and i had to strenuously resist buying things form the Tchibo website . I only need to hold out for a week then i can order :-))  
What i did do was retrieve some pots from the garden and wash them out with hot soapy water to make sure they dont harbour any germs . They are Scheurich pots and i love them . one is brown , one is bright orange and the other is a metal bucket  with a daisy wrapround picture on it . I expect they will end up on my balcony table with Geraniums and Chives in them . 
This afternoon was a drwing afternoon ,. I finally gave the Snow Leopard some life . My daughter was howling with laughter when i was talking to it . She is off school with a sprained ankle . She kept saying its not real mummy ! and i covered the leopards ears with my hand and said "dont listen ! now , where do you want your tail " she thinks im mad .

Studio scribbles ..

The whole thing but bear in mind the perspective is skewed because the desk is tipped

Im having background troubles , it will probably change a few times , and the snow leopard too  , before im through . First it was too fat , then too thin . then the ears needed to be closer and the eyes too far apart .. but im getting closer now .

Birds.

We took a drive out today to get more bird food and while we were out we took a trip to a local farm  We took some photos but missed the best . Among the ones that got away were two Barn Owls , a Kestrel  , three Herons and a Marsh Harrier . What i did get were Partridge

Also a lapwing and several others  .

I wanted to take a trip to the local garden centre but our Island was cut off from the mainland , both bridges closed do that was that . I was feeling pretty depressed this morning and could have done with some plant soothing i wanted to go stroke some herbs for the scent of it but i'l have to wait . I settled with cleaning up my overwintering Geraniums  , taking of  the dead leaves and flowers and sweeping under them . I gave them a little feed since the light levels have been so low lately , probably why i have been feeling not so bouncy . One of them is in flower , bright red , that makes me feel better . I also found some Basil seeds in one of my magazines and i can sow indoors now , i can get my gardening fix .  On a sad note my geranium cuttings did not take and i used rooting compound too . ah well , the big ones are fine .