The August Challenge

At the beginning of August I decided to set myself a challenge. This challenge was to draw or paint a different bird each day of August and so far it's been going extremely well!

I will admit it did go a bit crazy in the sense that I seemed to lose my ability to colour anything to start with. I wasn't happy with any of the paintings I was doing but it wasn't too bad seeing as I'm not doing these for anybody but myself so there's no pressure to make them perfect.

Here are the first nine birds, some of which are still unfinished and some are just lineart, I am planning on scanning these and colouring them digitally! So here's the bird nerd moment!!
from left to right we have the Spectacled Owl, Common Bronzewing, Tui, Northern Hawk Owl, Trumpeter Hornbill, Blue Vanga, Magpie, Bearded Tit and the Rufous Necked Hornbill.

My OH is choosing each of the birds this month so it's a real challenge and is testing me in many different ways. I'm realising that by actually managing a bird every day along with my other work I'm actually being very organised, I'm also having to work on birds I probably wouldn't choose myself, some of which have actually been quite a challenge at times! I've also managed to push through the annoyance of my colouring skills failing which is something I wouldn't normally do, I tend to walk away and do something else instead unless it's a commission.

So hopefully I can keep going with this and have 31 birds by the end of the month!

Speaking of commissions I have one at the moment that involves hamsters! It's nice and refreshing compared to cats and dogs and I'm loving it, even if hamsters are little balls of fluff with big ears!
I can't post anything as they are a commission and I don't have permission, they're also a gift and I tend not to post anything about them until after they're been gifted but they are now at the inking stage and looking super fun. I can't wait to get some colour on them!

I've been having lots of fun with the Wiltshire Etsy Team and it's so much fun to actually meet local sellers like myself. It's lots of fun to make new friends in the crafty world!

In the more adventurous side of my life me and the OH also went on a fairly epic adventure at the weekend. Walking up to Westbury White Horse in Wiltshire. It was so hot we were melting along the way and we got lost frequently thanks to the Public Footpaths being extremely badly signed (Thank goodness for OS maps!) But getting lost actually proved fairly awesome as we got to see a deer and a fox up close... it made me really miss my cameras so maybe in future I'll actually remember to take at least one camera to capture some awesome moments in nature!
Thankfully once we finally reached the top of the white horse there was a nice breeze and we got to sit down and have some well earned food!
The white horse is a beautiful place and lots of fun to walk around, we even got to see a crop circle which was actually the first I'd ever seen in person.

And now to continue with my challenge, today is the 11th bird and is the Puffin. I can't resist the goofy little birds but gosh they are such a challenge to draw for me, there's no part of them that's really in proportion with anything else! 

I'm currently stuggling with prioritising work and my mind is full of just too many ideas so all of my Etsy plans have gone a bit up in the air. I know, it's not my best move! So I'm trying to get as many ideas out of my head and in to reality at the same time as working out what products to go with for Etsy. I keep having these doubts over whether things will sell again so I'm going to have to sit down and go over everything again. Maybe next week I will get back on top of things!

I also apologise if my writing is a bit clunky right now... I've gotten so out of the habit of writing these or just writing anything in general that I'm lacking a lot and I know it!

So for now I wish you a good weekend! I have a ridiculously busy Friday tomorrow and no idea what these weekend might hold! Yay for the unknown! (Not sarcasm!)

I'll be back next week hopefully sounding a lot better and with better things to show after my absense!

I will leave you with a dose of cuteness... Riley got his own fort in the form of a huge cardboard box this week, he loved it! ;)

 

<3