Easter Preparations

I have been busy with some special things for Easter this week- and with the garden ;)  You can read about the latter on my Nature/Garden blog, but I'll post a bit of the former here:

Two cute bunny egg cosies- from the Little Cotton Rabbit's Knitting Pattern, the pattern can be found here.  It's a fairly quick and easy knit- I have long been an admirer of her little rabbits, so I was thrilled when I saw this!  It takes a little practise to learn exactly how to stuff the head right, but I am getting there ;)

New Look, New Work

If you read this on my actual blog, you might notice that it looks different. Blogger has debuted a new thing where they let you customize your blog, quite simply :) So, being a typical artist, I just had to try it all out. I hope they get some new template designs, I rather like the method used, and I love the new layout!!

You will notice also, that the header is new. Yes, all the work on the header is mine, and they are all pretty recent- in fact two of them are so recent I have yet to blog them!

So without further ado, here are the new pieces :)

First up, 4 plein air journal pages, with the first signs of spring.


They were all done, sitting in the garden on some VERY pleasant days :)

Then is a double spread of our visit to Jamestown Settlement's "Military Through the Ages" re-enactment. This is a wonderful event on the first weekend of spring every year, and I highly recommend it (especially if you are a re-enactor- they can always use more encampents!!). I drew the pictures today, from photos I took at the event, impatient children don't allow for much sketching dontchya know!!


This Merlin was being handled by a master falconer- he was such a beautiful bird!
A re-enactor whose pose on my camera was just so great I had to draw him :)

Signs of Spring

Signs of Spring
Originally uploaded by Spinneretta

As I did last year, I went out on one of those warm days and recorded some of the small signs of spring around the yard... the blooming speedwell, deadnettle and bittercress, and the growing daffodils.
This is, as you can see, a journal page- complete with a shopping list :)

You can read more about the nature on my flickr or nature blog.

Cowbirds

Cowbirds
Originally uploaded by Spinneretta

I decided to draw the fountain in our garden, and some of it's visitors. Typically, no visitors appeared while I drew, so I added these brown headed cowbirds from memory!

You can read more about it on my nature blog :)

seeds

seeds
Originally uploaded by Spinneretta

Had to draw the seed packets of the seeds I planted :)

You can read more about them on my nature blog :)

Pigma Micron and Watercolour Pencils on Arches Hot Press Paper.

Stavanger, Norway

Stavanger, Norway
Originally uploaded by Spinneretta

Well I had initially planned to send this in for the Virtual Paintout, but I am not happy with it.
Maybe because it looks too sketchy? Maybe I needed another medium? well whatever, I shall try again!

Monthly Sketch Project: March 2010

Monthly Sketch Project: March 2010
Originally uploaded by Spinneretta

The March 2010 installment of the Monthly Sketch Project.

From a Photo by Gillian.

Derwent Watercolour Pencils on Hot Press Arches Paper.

Coffee and Walnut Cupcakes

Coffee and Walnut Cupcakes
Originally uploaded by Spinneretta

Baked some of these using my Mum's Coffee and Walnut Cake recipe :)

6oz Sugar
6oz Butter
3 Eggs
6oz Self Raising Flour
1 Tbsp Instant Coffee mixed with 1 Tbsp of Water or 1 1/2 Tbsp of strong coffee
1/4 Cup of Walnuts, chopped fine

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and flour and mix well. Add in coffee flavour, mix well.
Fold in walnuts.
Pour mixture into greased cupcake tins (or use the paper liners) or a greased cake tin.
Cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes (cupcakes) or a little longer for large cake- or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool.

Frost with coffee flavoured buttercream:

1 stick (4oz) butter
2 Cups Icing Sugar (Confectioner's Sugar)
1 Tbsp of Instant Coffee mixed with 1 Tbsp of water or 1.5 Tbsp of strong coffee.

Put ingredients into mixer bowl and mix until a spreadable consistency is reached.
They taste delicious ;)

Last Few Days in February

There is more art here- I just hadn't gotten around to posting it up on my blog (although I have managed to get it onto Flickr ;)

In keeping with my new resolution to focus on pencils, I bought myself a 36 pencil set of the new formula Derwent Watercolour Pencils. Watercolour pencils enthrall me- I love the IDEA of them, but am never quite certain how to carry it through. I am hoping to figure out how to get the colours beautifully rich ;)

As with all my new toys- I tried them out, creating the colour chart below. These are all the colours in the 36 count tin.

I added some water to the right side so you can see how they look- as usual the greens really don't scan well. I'll have to see if I can photograph them...

I love the colour of this drink- which is why I drew it. I loved the pink giving a real sunrise feel to it, but it did rather detract from the gorgeous drink colour. Never mind, I more or less caught the colour of it ;)

Another birthday- this time my Dad's :) So I drew up a card for him- and barely remembered to take a photo just as we were leaving to mail it... so that is why the picture quality is so bad. it did a great job on the colour though...

I blogged more about these on my nature blog... the moon pillar here and the garden stuff here :)


All three of these are experiments with the new watercolour pencils. I admit, they definitely lay colour down better than the original Derwent Watercolours... more experiments to come :)