Fuzzydragons

For a quick little etching, this has turned out not bad. The birds are only about an inch in size, not including the leg, so hard to put in the amount of detail I would like. Going to be hard enough finding a press to print this as it is, would be impossible to print if I did this in the size I really wanted too lol And now onto a dragon :D

This week word of the week is, hoatching . Last weeks word, yeukie , means itchy. I did mean to have a video up for this week, but then the car broke and that is a tad more important then making a video. Hopefully next week *crosses fingers and toes*

  Figured it was time to start working on a sketchbook, so started with a Mallard. I want to try to draw every bird I see, but that will depend on if I can manage to get a pic of it. I don't think I am going to be able to get pics of the Swifts on the hill, they fly around like little rockets that dive bomb the dog :p (My  writing is horrible!. I can draw but can't write lol)

I didn't really get much drawing done today, busy cleaning with help from my mother in law, which is greatly appreciated, and my hands and feet are numb, well numb isn't the right word. They feel like a dead weight. Jeeze, I've been mentioning health issues a lot lately lol So below is probably my favourite on the art trail from yesterday, I really like the energy it has and its really well done. Hard to tell what it is from this angle but.... Diving ducks! I think its very clever the way the water has been portrayed.    Head close up.   Another duck on the statue :) This is done by the artist David Annand . He has a lot of great work on his site to look at. I did manage to get one petal done on the lilies and start another, but then my hand gave up the ghost, so had to stop.

I had planned on working on this all day yesterday to try to get it finished, but I ended up with the migraine from hell and couldn't do anything. Thankfully it seems to have gone away *crosses fingers*. My brain feels fried tho and a tad hard to concentrate on things. Of course with all the research I have done on MS, migraines are pretty common and especially if you had them before diagnoses. yay.... Anyway, I still need to push some of those lilies more into the background and hopefully that makes some of the lilies pop forward. Good thing I have two pink polys, this is a lot of pink in one drawing lol

John was in Perth a few days ago and took my camera, and took thousands of pictures including most of the art on the River Tay public art trail.There is a PDF of the trail but I don't think I can add it to the post. If a person wants to see the art on the trail Google "river tay public art trail" and you should find it. I think because I did an assignment on public art last year I have a bit more appreciation for it and am more aware of the public art around, and there is a lot of it that people don't seem to care about or notice. I like more functional public art, but still enjoy finding/seeing the public art that is just supposed to be looked at or be pretty (or ugly in some cases :p).   One day when its nice out and I am not walking like I am drunk too much I do plan on going around the whole trail, even if it takes me all day :p

I am so tempted to get pink ink when I print this lol This colour I think would look nice. Still planning on building a press, just watching the pennies at the moment so it will have to wait, but I have found a few other ways to print that I can try, all I need is the ink.

And 3 Flamingos roughly etched in. Maybe have them all roughed in tomorrow *crosses fingers*

I am torn. I like the head of the eagle and the way the feathers look on his/her head, but am getting frustrated with the feathers on the body. I'm not look for absolute realism but they need a lot of work and I don't know if there is enough tooth on the paper for the pencils. Putting it away for a few days and then I will come back to it and decide then what to do. On the foot front, more bruising on the side of my foot and my ankle. Plus a few bumps that stick out a bit. Possibly tendons. So rest as much as possible and try to walk normally and then cross my fingers I don't do something else once it heals again :p And since I normally have pins and needles in my feet and numb toes, it would be hard to tell if the pins and needles feeling is damage to my foot or the MS :p

This weeks Scottish Word is, yeukie. Last weeks word, loup , means to jump...leep :) I am still going to try to get the camera set up on the tripod so I can have video of John saying the words. Might be easier to guess if an actual Scottish person says them lol

2 of 5 birds roughly etched :) This is going to be a long piece, but not very tall so I am crossing my fingers the composition will work. I can already see I need some more shading on the birds to make them look a little more round, but will finish the rest of the birds before I do that. And of course it has been raining off and on all day so it is a good thing we didn't go to the Highland Show, would have been drenched again.

So its a good thing I hadn't bought tickets to the Highland show for a few reasons. Re-injured my foot, being my usual clumsy self and the car is dead. The clutch is....donald ducked :p. Just managed to get it home after it stalled a few times, and now its sitting in the drive until we get a new clutch parts or scrap the whole car. What I find funny about this is that we just sold a car the other day, so could have used it :p At least I have a bus if we really need something from town lol

Does anyone know what the above bird is called? As neither Jen nor I have a clue.... Cheers John aka MrF

23C might not seem that hot, but I really don't handle heat well at all. Heat and MS often don't mix, so when I get too hot, I get something called Uhthoff's phenomenon . My hands get really shaky and my legs go dead. Loads of fun :p So a small update on the eagle, but on the plus side I did manage to read a whole book today. Always look at the positive and I love my ereader with its thousands of books on it lol. I should never run out of things to read.....

Progress on the coloured pencil eagle :) I need more brown Colorsofts, I only have 3. But I really don't need to buy any more pencils considering I have some I want to get rid of. The background wont be so patchy once I am done Will go over it again with some more green pencils, but I needed a base colour to work with so the eagle's colours didn't look too odd. 

Small update to the lilies. Taking a lot longer than I thought it would :/ I'm debating on whether or not on going to the Highland Show next weekend. The problem is it always rains during the show and its never just a little bit of rain. Its a monsoon. The other problem is that if my MS plays up and I can't walk, I can't go and thats £30 wasted. ugh see this is why a person with MS cannot really plan anything in advance because they don't know what will happen and what might cause the disease to rear its head. On the other hand if I do go I might get some pictures to draw. And I want to try to go now because since there is a huge lesion on the part of my brain that controls motor functions, who knows what will happen in a year. I might not be able to walk, but I also might be fine. I just want to see baby highland cows dammit. So cute :p

loupThis weeks word is, lowp . Last weeks word, dreich , means dreary. Can also be used if it is wet horrible weather .

 Starting to fill in the eagle's detail. I really have to start thinking of titles for work, but I am so bad at it. I know I've talked about this before here, and things haven't changed. I have a lot of work labelled untitled #.... For this, I am just going open a random bird related book, close my eyes and the first word my finger lands on will be the title. I figure its a bird book,  I should get an all right title from it *crosses fingers* 

Forgot how strong the smell of turps is lol The start of another coloured pencil piece. Still working on the lilies but wanted to work on a bird and since I don't have any plexi-glass cut for an etching right now, I have to use coloured pencil to do it. Did a very messy background and then blended it with turps. Will have to go over it with more pencils to darken some areas but that is a lot easier to do now that there is a green base colour.

Here is the arabian etching finished. I wanted to see if I could etch something other than birds, and apparently I can. Definitely work bigger if I want more detail. This is a from a stock image off of Deviantart . I actually don't have that many photos of horses to draw from, which is odd since I live near a few stables. I keep meaning to email them to ask if I could take photos of some of their horses, I guess I could just stand by the fence and take photos but one of the pastures is really close to the road, and I would probably get turned into pancake. hmmm speaking of pancakes, I don't think I have had a pancake in the 7+ years I have been here. Going to have to make pancakes now lol

OK, its much easier to work large, I really have to pick and choose the most important lines on the horse. I can get much more detail when I work bigger, but having a challenge can be good. Makes me work my artistic brain :p I wanted to have this little thing finished today, but had an appointment at the hospital to go to for neurology. But, they had no idea why I was there. After a bit of back and forth, figured out it was about a possible medication change. So now I am going to be on Gilyena instead of Rebif, and do not Google the side effects lol, they are not horrible but can be, not nice :p. Shiny info packet. I can't imagine how much it cost to produce these, money that could have been spent on things that are more useful. There really wasn't any info in it, that I either couldn't look up or wasn't already told.

Another small update on the lilies :) I'm glad I am working on a few things at once, allows me to switch between them when my hand goes numb working on this. I've been going threw all my pencils and need to get rid of my prismas since I don't use them. Either sell them or just give them away, haven't decided yet, but its a tin of 120, its missing about 16 I think. I was going to keep them to just sketch with but there isn't much point and they are just taking up space. Love the colours, but don't use wax coloured pencils very much any more.

About 4x5 inches in size. I either go really big or really small lol Been looking into different ways I can print these without having to resort to running the plates over with the car, so hopefully once I order some ink and more paper, I will have some actual prints in my hands soon.

Done for the moment at least.  I need a break away from this bird for a few days, or weeks because I'm starting to go cross eyed working on it lol I think the next etching will be smaller. I like working big, it just takes so long to do. Some people don't actually realize how much work can go into printmaking, they think its just making lots of copy of art, and yeah it is, but a person can spend days (weeks) working on the plates to make those prints. And that is why some artists ask for a lot of money for the prints they create to try to make the time spent creating worth it. Don't get me wrong, money is great, but I do etchings because I love it, not because I think I will ever make a lot of money at it.

Back to Canadian music :)

My hand is numb or I would have more done on this, but there is always tomorrow to work on it. Once all of the colours are filled in, I need to go back and add some blues to some of the lilies to push them into the background and add more shading to everything, but I want to get as much of the colours down before I do that.

This weeks word is, dreich . Which is what it is today :/ Last weeks word, stammygaster , means an unpleasant surprise.

*Hits head against desk* I thought the end was in sight, but nope, still needs lots of shading. Really proud of this as it stands right now tho :) The lilies at the moment. I wanted more done on these, but I am having a hard time concentrating because of foot pain. I don't really need to concentrate when I etch, but need to try to think when using coloured pencils, so I don't end up using the wrong colours.

Where the lilies stand at the moment. I am going to try to work more on them today, but not sure if I am going to be able to since I had something hacked out of my chest and it kinda hurts to bend over an art board :p *downs pain killers*

When I first started this, I wasn't really sure if it was going to turn out. It just looked really odd. But thankfully I kept with it because I do like how it looks now. Lots more shading to do, but now that the basic feathers are etched, it should be finished quicker (hopefully).

7 hours later. Yeah its crooked but I will fix that when I trim the paper down to size. I love coloured pencils, but so slow. Etching is almost quicker. Why do I pick the art mediums that take forever? :p

  This weeks word is, stammygaster . Last weeks word, shoogle , means to shake.