New Products are now LIVE!

Wowee! this week has been insane! We've had some ups and downs but we've ended on a very nice up so I can't really complain there!

This week involved a lot of work making new products including some super cute new bird brooches! Here they are in all their shiny glory!

These guys were just so much fun to work on and I can't wait to make more... hopefully I'll need to make more! XD
I will have to admit my little wren has to be my absolute favourite even if I am a big fan of finches... she just has that round cute look that all finches have. Just having seen one bobbing around just adds to it.

And as you may also have noticed... I finally sorted my packaging out! I've been trying to design packaging/backing cards for my jewellery items for months now and never had the right look. So this week I sat down and wouldn't let myself move until I had a design that I was happy with and this happened. I'm very pleased with the outcome no matter how simple it looks! And they look fab once the jewellery is attached to them! I've managed to get better images of the fox and corvus necklaces too which has made me much happier as I've never truly been happy with the product pictures I'd taken of them before.
But then again when it comes to taking product pictures I'm a bit naughty and put it off or try to hide from it as even though I absolutely love y camera and love photography... I HATE taking product pictures! I can never get them to look how I imagine. This is why photography is only a small hobby for me rather than my career!

You can get these items in my Etsy shop, just click HERE

I also now offer pet portrait commissions through my Etsy shop that is going to make it a lot easier for people to order from me. You can however still order through emailing me as well.

I'm excited at the chance to work on more pet portraits!

And of course as a test piece to use before making final brooches I made myself this!

My Silly Badger from my logo who I've become very attached to but then again this is me and I do love my badgers! As you can see it's very tiny but oh so shiny and glossy to the point where I can't stop stroking it! And of course it's nice to be able to wear my logo with pride because I really truly am proud of what I've managed to accomplish with Silly Badger Designs.

So that's my week in Badger Studios! It doesn't seem much but it has been full on with lots to do and write out. Next week there are going to be a couple more products uploaded if all goes to plan! (fingers crossed!) and maybe something a little special at the end of the week ;)

But for now, my work week has come to an end and it's now time to relax and have some time to myself! And try to straighten my back out after a week filled with bending over laptops and worktops!

I'm not a normal person, I can't work at a desk so my back suffers immensely, one day I might behave more like an adult, until then I shall enjoy the feel of my muscles tightening... yeah.

 Have a fantastic weekend filled with smiles and fun!

Okay So It's Been A While...

April has been a bit on the hectic side and I'll admit... I have slacked off a bit... oops! But that was mainly down to spending time with family and having fun!

It was my birthday though which I celebrated in typical nerdy badger style, lots of fun and laughs with close family and an animal day out with my fabulous OH. I was spoiled and full of love and I'm still buzzing from it all now!
I love everything and everyone I have in my life so very dearly, I wouldn't change it for the world!

I did however have a very art inspiring birthday. I haven't actually gone out for my birthday for a while now and this year I wanted to actually celebrate! I have this thing right now of celebrating everything and feeling every little emotion available. It's a weird moment I know but anyway! We went to Bristol Aquarium and saw the amazing underwater creatures they have on show.
Needless to say the animal nerd was very happy and very hyper! And it seems that I still am slightly! Top highlights had to include:-

The Stingray!

He was very cheeky and kept coming up to the glass as shown in the picture above. This was mainly because he was waiting for food but it was lots of fun to crouch in front and watch as he flashed his white underbelly at us repeatedly.

The Seahorses!

My poor OH, that's all I can say! I tend to get excited about seahorses... I'm not sure why, they're not the most fascinating sea creature out there and they are a bit on the dim side but when I see them I'm lost in fascination. At the aquarium they had a large tank with a large herd* of adults in it which was exciting as there seemed to be a lot of heavy males in there, yay for pregnant seahorses! They also had two smaller nursery tanks filled with... yep, you guessed it! dozens of tiny baby seahorses! I was practically buzzing back and forth between the tanks just watching them swim around happily or in the baby tanks case, cling on to each others tails or heads... they have a lot to learn!

*I haven't gone mad, a group of seahorses really is called a herd!

The Leopard Shark!

Okay, so I love sharks. I have a lot of respect for them and probably wouldn't swim with them but I absolutely love them. 

Quick fact! The spots on a leopard shark are so varied between individuals that they are used to identify particular sharks, just like human finger prints! Cool huh!

At the aquarium the leopard shark was in a large tank that had a walk through tunnel beneath it. I'm not sure what it is but watching these amazing fish swim over you so casually is fantastic. We hung around this tank for a while and I found myself twisting and turning in to unnatural positions just so I might get to see the shark from below over and over again. At one point it did swim passed close to the tank glass so that you could see the texture of its skin, I was completely fascinated! :P

The Unicorn Fish!

I myself had never come across one of these before and got slightly out nerded by my OH! Although it was fairly amusing as I had been chatting to a friend who shares the same birthday as me and being the goof I am, I started sending her lots of unicorns calling them birthday unicorns... little did I know that later that day I would see a birthday unicorn ;) They were quite elegant as they swam around their tank eyeing us up as they went.

I find that fish in aquariums do a lot of people watching!

Other highlights I couldn't get pictures of included a ray spitting water at us like a fountain, an interesting big nosed blue fish, some very bulldog looking piranha and a badger fish! Yes there is a badger fish and I didn't know about it! It's most commonly known as the foxface rabbitfish but yeah ;) I can find badgers everywhere, even in an aqurium.

So as you can see it was a very amazing birthday and I now want to get my watercolours out and paint many fish!

I also had the joy of something else happening last week.

Vinny, my venus fly trap had its first flower open and is producing heads again! I have become so attached to this plant and have been researching them like there's no tomorrow (you'd be amazed at the clashing info you can find out there!) but I'm just so amazed that I've kept it alive this long!

My goal is to propagate this plant and create a little group of hydras... I'm not sure how that will go or if it will all end in tears but it will be an adventure either way... It's also quite exciting to grow seeds or from leaves.

But more on to work stuff, I do have lots going on right now even though tonight I hit a huge confidence low in what I'm doing. I hate it when my mind does that because I know it's just me having a low moment but I'm still left thinking what am I doing!? and Oh hell this is hopeless!

I am however designing a proper logo for my etsy shop as right now I have a badger doodle that says nothing about me... apart from badger. So the silly badger is being created. 

I also have my shrink plastic out and am trying to work out sizes for some finch badges. The worst part of using shrink plastic for me other than the annoying curling is the sizing. I always tend to make them too small even when I feel like I spent forever working out the math. There's a reason I changed my mind on becoming a vet! Math is definitely not my strongest point.

My etsy shop will also be getting a bit of attention, I will be making and updating the packaging for jewellery items, adding some new items and there may also be a chance of a discount offer! So keep an eye out if you're interested.

And then there's the other thing. I recently made the ratty zines and loved every moment of it. I really enjoyed the whole process but at the same time felt that I should give zines a break as it took a fair amount of time to create.

Well. I now have more zine ideas and they've all gone to paper tonight. One, the favourite one is a spoof on pet care leaflets. In this case instead of a how to care for your hamster I am working on how to care for your velociraptor. What can I say, it's all about the theropods for me right now! It's also based lightly on something I was creating around this time last year so I'm hoping to get that project back up and running!

Like I said, there's lots going on and April has been crazy and wonderful. 

Keep an eye out for updates this week!

Have a great week!

No News Is Good News

That's a hard thing to swallow when you're just starting out and you could do with a little reassurance... Ah well. C'est la vie!

Anyway! On to the more exciting stuff!

The ratty zine is now complete and listed up on my etsy shop here! It has been so much fun to make and I've loved completing it and finally seeing it in it's book form!

And it is by far the best little zine I've ever made. 

These zines are A6 sized with 16 pages filled with amusing descriptions of ratty behaviour and fun illustrations based on real ratties I've had the privilege to know over the years.

I've also added some more greeting cards and some necklaces to my shop, go here to check them out!

It's been a very long day and a long week in general. I have a bad back to prove it although that may have been caused more by my labrador monster who decided to get very hyper when we went for a walk in the woods to the point of nearly dragging me face first down a muddy hill!

I am really really looking forward to this weekend with my partner! I need a break!! Desperately!!

Have a great weekend with lots of smiles and laughter! 

January - You sucked!

I do apologise for being absent for pretty much the whole of January. Unfortunately I had problems and writing and being merry was not top of my priorities.

But enough of that! Life is much more positive now and I feel like I'm back at the wheel. 

I've updated my redbubble shop with some cheery designs. When I'm feeling really bad or scared or hopeless (things an anxiety fighter feels fairly frequently!) I tend to try and draw really upbeat positive things in the hope that I can cheer people up, including myself.

So I got to work on blue tits, one of my most favourite little uk birds and rats... what can I say, I love the little mischiefs! 

My favourite had to be my little blue shown above, I started drawing this little guy to cheer myself up and it kind of grew from there in to something I've fallen in love with. And I have a habit of making cheesy little rhymes up... I usually keep them in my head but this one had to come out.

So here is my mr blue!

I'm working on lots of things right now including one big project that is taking up a lot of my time and energy. I've spent most of today working on this and am currently feeling extremely mentally exhausted by it, hence the reason I'm posting here, a nice quick break. 

I just wanted to come here and say I am still alive and I am still working on lots of designs, I've just had to go a bit quiet for my own sanity. Hopefully things will pick up!

Use the link above to check out the new designs and happy February!

The end to a very busy first week of 2016! Gosh that one went fast didn't it!
Well this week has mostly been full of organising, budgeting and paperwork so that's been lots of fun as you can imagine. But I have managed to squeeze in art work and got my first work of the year done!

I decided to play with new coloured pencils I got for Christmas from my awesome mr... I was ever so slightly spoiled with my first experience of Faber Castell pencils.
Now I do a very good go at playing the starving artist. I don't really have that much spare cash and when I do have it... I tend to spend it on silly fun things or takeaway (typical 20 something artist I believe!) so I've never splashed out on this brand because they tend to be a bit more costly than what I'm comfortable with. So getting gifted these was a wow moment, I want to say I was completely gobsmacked when I saw them and the feeling continued when I started to use them.
I can't believe how soft and blendable these beauties are! I think I definitely converted whilst colouring this highland cow!

I have been told that this is a slightly amoosing (get it!) self portrait with the fluffy hair and crooked smile... It wasn't meant to but my loving mother decided to claim it was... I guess I do share similarities with these awesome cows :P

 

Next on the list has been a new little project I started. Before Christmas I did a small watercolour painting of British garden birds that I really enjoyed working on. The style is a lot more fun than my others and it was something I really wanted to explore more so I found a small square sketch book that I've had lying around for too long and dedicated it to being filled with British bird illustrations. This will probably turn in to birds of the world at some point but for now I'm focusing on the British variety or at least the species that spend time in this country.

First of was my chirpy little wren. I drew a draft of this cheeky chappy back in December and have been meaning to expand on the idea so it only seemed right to draw him first. It turned out much  better than I'd originally planned!

I used watercolour and coloured pencil here and the outcome was exactly what I wanted.

I liked it so much I decided to get started on the draft sketches for three other bird species. This time the Kingfisher, bullfinch and fieldfare. I just need to get painting them next week! So four down so far! Next will probably include the iconic winter robin and maybe a blue tit.

In other news! I've joined the Etsy Resolution programme! (Anyone else in the UK who is considering Etsy but lacking the confidence/wants to learn as much as possible I can highly recommend joining!) This is a four week programme with mentors and help with setting up a shop, a nice little boost for those just starting out like myself.

I'll admit at first I felt quite nervous and skeptical but you only move forward by taking steps so this is my step. Maybe this time life won't get in the way of opening my shop!

I'm also coming very close to hitting 100 sales on Redbubble which is actually quite exciting! Thanks to the lovely people out there who've already made orders with my designs this year! That was a lovely start to the year for me! Hope you enjoy your goodies!

I now have a busy few weeks getting products created for my Etsy shop! I will keep this updated with that little adventure along with my other adventure... I'm going to be making my own fun little bird book filled with illustrations similar to the above! This is obviously going to take a lot of plotting and planning but it's going to be worth it in the end! 

So much going on right now it's becoming difficult to fit it all in to my organiser! Nice having my life becoming a fabulous whirlwind! Unlike last year I'm in control and loving every moment of this!

Keep your head up, this too shall pass... and you are wonderful!

Little Roan Rat

Little Roan Rat

It's always interesting to see which of my designs prove popular at various moments throughout the year. I've only been selling through Redbubble since April this year! (Gosh it feels like it's been much longer!) but in that time I've seen some of my designs catch the hearts of some people. 

It has mostly revolved around Mama Bear and Foxy Naps but this little guy has managed to wriggle his way in.

I love my rats, whether it's the pets I've owned or the doodles I create, the little fuzzers will always have a special place in my heart even though I am unfortunately highly allergic now. So when somebody likes any of my rat designs it fills me with a different kind of joy than my other designs.

Lately Little Roan Rat, pictured above or as he was better known as 'Rufus' has become popular and seeing that little sales email saying another one of these guys has been loved and is off to a new home fills me with so much happiness!

What people may not know is that all of my rat designs are based on my own or my partners rats. Between us we've owned a good many who we adored. 

I've spent the last ten years sharing my life with these gorgeous creatures, there were ups and downs and many veterinary lessons but I don't regret a moment.

So I thought I would take the time to feature the little guy who inspired the ratty doodles and the rat featured above. I'd like to introduce Rufus.

Rufus was a rather chubby, extremely lazy, food loving Husky/Roan rat who loved his cuddles with mummy... that would be me. 

He was originally my partners rat and lived with him throughout his baby rathood until my partner had to move to a place that unfortunately didn't allow pets. So Rufus and his brother Ghost came to live with me. Amusingly whilst he lived with my partner he hated me. If I held him he'd desperately scrabble to get away from me and was always desperate to get back to his cage or at least my partner.

So when he suddenly became a big softy and became besotted with me I can honestly say I was shocked... but loved every moment. I'm not going to lie, sure I felt a bit bad at kind of stealing my partners pet but... having rat cuddles made the bad feelings disappear.

He was our special boy who bumbled around his cage, perching and wobbling on precarious platforms, eating his way through any fruit, veg or chocolate he could get his paws on, leaving little puddles and snuggling up on our laps. He was also an impressive boggler...

To anyone who doesn't know rats, Boggling is basically... rats bouncing their eyeballs when they get super happy... It sounds horrible but it's actually quite adorable.

Unfortunately we lost Rufus a couple of weeks ago and it's still fairly painful. People think rats are just a pet in a cage in the room, something that eats, pees and needs cleaning. In reality rats are much more like a cat or dog. They are extremely interactive and love attention and in the case of males they just want cuddles and food.

I still find myself going to where his cage was to get him out for cuddles, I didn't realise just how much I loved that rat and how much of an impact he had on my life. My mental state hasn't adjusted just yet.

But I don't want to be morbid and grim. He was a wonderful rat and brought lots of joy and happiness along with much laughter to most people who met him.

So now when I see people liking the Rufus doodle I smile knowing that even now he's still making people smile.

It's also lovely to see how many rat fans are out there. I can't stress more over what amazing creatures they truly are.

I've also found myself wanting to draw more rat designs and maybe focus on them early next year... alongside every other project I have going on! So maybe the rats will take over in January. There's also a ratty project that's ongoing with my partner that is going to be happening soon! Once I get my head in gear and out of birds!

Gosh it's been a crazy December.

Last Chance!

Use code LASTCHANCE to get 20% off your order from Redbubble!! Festive or not!

Go Here!

Holidays Are Coming!

Are you feeling festive yet? Gosh it's taken me a while with all these deadlines but finally I am feeling the warm festive glow around me... or is that just the candle I have lit next to me...

The weather here is currently gloomy, so very typical December weather, grey clouds, grey sky, greygreygreygrey!

But Strangely that does make me think of Christmas! I guess it's my version of a twinkling snow scene! I have however been adding lots of snow to many of my recent works including the mouse illustration above!

This was a watercolour illustration done especially for my OH's parents Christmas card and it was so much fun to work on, even if I did grumble at first. Apparently I've been painting too many birds lately (is there truly such a thing?) and mammals were suddenly extremely challenging... and I dislike drawing plants in general, I am not a planty person at all. I love to look at them and help them grow but when it comes to drawing them... I feel pain!

So not that my must do Christmas illustration list is over I can finally let out a sigh of relief that I no longer HAVE to draw holly leaves! I know I don't essentially have to but there's something very festive about holly.

So I'm now completely done for Christmas cards! Or at least that's what I believe now... I'm sure there's a chance someone will buy another off me last minute.

But for now I can bask in the glory that I did it. I managed to do it all even though it felt like the impossible task.

Now I'm left with just normal illustrations to work on...

She says now just remembering she was going to design a calendar for 2016 featuring wildbirds, so maybe I can't relax just yet.

I also have plans of a book variety in the coming months if plans work out and I don't burn out. Gosh I hope I don't burn out!

I now need to go punch some holes in some birdy gift tags ready for present wrapping over the next week.

Oh December! Why are you disappearing so quickly! Well, nearly 2016!

Have a great weekend!! I'm cat sitting again!!

Christmas Commissions CLOSED

General Commissions OPEN (I will be away from the studio over the Christmas break but commissions for 2016 will still be taken) 

Find out more and contact me here

Redbubble!

Tis the season!

If you're interested in buying any of my desgins from redbubble then now is the time! Christmas is obviously around the corner for many of us and there are those gifts to get or even the odd Christmas card for that special someone.

I have festive designs...

Badger Kisses

Designs for bird lovers...

The Birds Are Still Singing

Designs for the ratty fans out there like myself...

                                      

Ratty People

The Mama Bear fans...

                                       

Mama Bear

And many many more on my Redbubble shop and the best thing is right now you can get 20% off with the code TICTOC

So if you're interested go grab some bargains at Redbubble

New Designs!

NEW DESIGNS UP ON MY 

REDBUBBLE SHOP!

NOW!

Shop Here!

So this week has been full on and full of designs! All of which are now available to buy through my Redbubble shop (Link above!) 

Winter has definitely set in over the last few days and I've spent most of today buried under a mass of blankets as I work... only downside being when I get up I suddenly feel frozen!

But it has inspired lots of winter/festive related work which I'm excited to say has now been done! Yay! Words cannot describe the utter excitement I'm feeling over this!

It has become clear recently that my style is shifting. My Christmas designs compared to those I made last year are slightly better but I'm not finding the traditional outlines with digital colouring as fun and interesting as I used to and instead am turning my attention to the style I've used for the birds above. 

I also have a calendar that I'm in the middle of designing right now and hoping to get up and available soon! It's featuring many birds but... being a bird lover it's hard to choose twelve... I've already ended up switching many about!

Seeing a photo of stampeding sanderlings was enough to make me want to include them.

Now my designs are finished I also have a lot of work to do putting them all together and adding some sparkle! All of the cards I create this year will be hand crafted by myself with added fun! My christmas designs last year lacked the sparkles.

So this is just a quick update before the crazy week begins!

I'm now off to make cinnamon swirls and paint mice! Have a good week!

Early Festivities!

Well Autumn has finally arrived, it's now the time of year for jumpers, hot chocolate, snuggly winter boots, cosy evenings and in my case, motivation time.
With the colder darker days my motivation grows and I get millions of ideas and unlike most of the year I actually create them!

Tonight I uploaded designs to redbubble. These included a few festive designs that are originally designed as Christmas cards. So if you're looking for some festive greetings go here!

These are designs I created and used myself last year and decided to share them this year along with more designs that are currently in the making.
I've also added some non festive illustrations including a cat and Spike the adorable hedgehog!

The to do list as usual is ever growing and I have some secret projects I can't show which is actually annoying me because I'm super excited over them.

Although next on the list I will be bringing my finches to life and they will become some cute badges that should be available soon!

As always commissions are open and originals are available, leave a comment if you're interested and I will get back to you!

Catching up.

I've had this arm length to do list for a few months now... all I seemed to be doing was adding to it and this week I've finally managed to tackle it.

My bird nerd self has also been released on the world once more and they have taken over my creative life. Firstly I've been desperately trying to develop a looser style to doodle ideas with. I tend to work fast but with a lot of detail, at times this can end with what looks extremely scruffy. Of course doodles are scruffy but I wanted it to feel better and not leave me cringing every time I flicked through a sketch book. This is what happened.

A chat with my OH lead to the idea of taken a traditional scene of a blue tit on a milk bottle and replacing the bottle with a coke bottle. It was very quick and not perfect and... glass bottles are not a simple task! But I'm really pleased with the style I managed and have been keeping the feel throughout my work this week.

I also got captured by finches (one of my favourite types of bird!) It all started with the idea of making a repeat pattern involving colourful finches... that then started me off drawing many many finches... I'm now creating a flock of over 30 finches!

The first image shows the draft idea sketches I made, they ended up working so well I've had lots of trouble recreating them!

The finches featured include the zebra finch, owl finch, gouldian finch, bullfinch, goldfinch, star finch, java finch and strawberry finch, in case anyone was interested and nerdy like myself!

This is where things got tricky... I started transferring designs to watercolour paper to try painting them... I really didn't like how they were turning out and got quite grumpy at them for not following in the footsteps of there predecessors :P
So instead I got out my bristol board and began making more lineart for more finches, this time I plan to colour them with coloured pencil like the original idea.

As you can see here I have around 20 finches to colour! And the added flying rat with balloons... you know, because who wouldn't?

It's been an extremely hectic week with lots of the boring paperwork involved but I've also managed to get two new designs up on redbubble!!

First design is a remake of my British garden birds, I took a lot of time arranging them so they would work as a repeat design and I'm really happy with the finished design and love how it looks on all the products, this is just one of them.

You can get this design here!

The second design is something I've been playing with for a while now but I kept making them too detailed so today I decided to sit down and simplify the design and this is what happened, the moment I added the lovely purple the design came alive! Here is just one product showing the design, it's definitely a favourite of mine now.

You can get your paws on this design here!

My redbubble store gets updated monthly so please check out my designs here

To keep up to date on my creative endeavors or just the crazy life I lead check out my instagram, link to the right --->

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN CONTACT ME HERE

ALL MY DESIGNS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE THROUGH MY REDBUBBLE SHOP

Thanks for reading and for the wonderful support I recieve! I'm now off on a well needed holiday for a week (I'm still available to contact)

So have a wonderful end to your August and may the birds sing loudly for you!

BYE!!

Mega Post

Well I haven't posted for a while and a lot has been created so as I was deciding what to include here the list grew longer and longer so I thought I'd just throw it all together. It's going to be a long post but there are lots of pictures, that makes it much more fun than just words! 

If you follow my instagram (link to the right!) You may have seen many of these, if not but you want to keep up with my creatings instagram is my most up to date social media so go check it out!

A while ago I decided that I wanted to have a go at lino printing. Something I'd never actually done myself but seen other people doing it over the years and every time I'd want to give it a go. So I bought myself a starter kit and got cutting. This was actually done on the small test piece of soft lino and came out quite good. I like my little Felix rat.

Lino cutting is something that takes a lot of thought, you not only have to cut out a negative design but you also have to do a mirror image of what you want as the final design. I can definitely recommend it though as it was lots of fun and I hope to spend some time working on more, larger designs soon.

Most of the time though I have been stuck with my normal medium of... watercolours. I'm still addicted and can't really see that changing any time soon!

This included animals I've never drawn before (the raccoon) ratty designs and a velociraptor all of which were lots of fun!

I feel like my brain is torn in two with the two styles I've currently adopted, I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing right now but it's giving me a huge portfolio to work with, something I can't complain about at all. I'm also seeing my work improve lately, I'm not only experimenting more but I'm also being more fluid with my brush strokes.

The ratty designs are also available to buy from my Redbubble shop (link at top of page)

I also tried to play with a silhouette. Of course the galaxy theme had to return for such a thing, I could call this Corvus 2. Silhouettes are not as easy as they seem and keeping a nice crisp line with watercolours can be fun... either that or I'm just too much of a fidget... that wouldn't really surprise me seeing as my workplace lately has been my bed leaning over the paper, wet brush in hand ready to cause chaos. I enjoy working on the crow and he currently sits beside my desk so I like him enough to leave him on show but not sure if it's a style I want to play more with... I prefer to draw eyes...

And then for something completely different... a T-rex skull... on black paper. This was actually a quick sketch whilst I was waiting for my OH to turn up so I didn't spend too much time on it and the effort was lacking as my mind was on other things but it was interesting. I don't think I'd ever appreciated all the holes and textures in skulls before now so that was fun to study for a bit. 

I'm still working on my dinosaur related project so there will be lots more studies like this happening over the next few months... hopefully if I can spare the time!

And then the watercolours returned and the bird nerd got excited. This all happened this week, starting with a list of birds I wanted to paint, I got through half the list because I got so excited.

I doubt I'll ever be able to explain my love of birds and of painting them... it's strange but they are just a delight to look at or interact with.

So as you can imagine, I had a lot of fun working on these! First is the Moorhen with her chicks which I like to call bumble bees, they are ridiculously tiny!!

I also started a quail and a background for another image I had planned which I'm not posting here.

The Californian Quail, now affectionately known as Mr Quail was tough, I was also suffering from a nasty headache that lasted 24 hours so had fun concentrating on him as you can imagine. I know he's not perfect but I have a soft spot for him already. His face and head plumage was fun to work on, I probably spent a good 3 hours on that area to get him how I wanted.

And then today I got challenged to work on Rainbow Lorikeets. These are Australian parrots that wreak havoc but are absolutely awesome. It's also the first time I've used watercolours to paint leaves and flowers... I struggled and it shows which just means I need to practice lots!

I'm very happy with them though and they complete my week of birds. 

The first image is the final piece, the second shows the progress shots I took on the journey through.

A lot of people get the impression that I can just draw the final image instantly like waving a magic wand, this isn't so as the picture shows, my work goes through many stages, some ugly stages before it reaches the end.

The trick to art like anything is to keep going!

So that ends the mega post of creativity... I'm hoping to be a bit more active again. I hit a wall when I failed to hit targets and deadlines and having a few things fall through knocked my confidence, that along with other experiences knocked me for six and I needed a break. I've had that and am now back in business and taking on the world in my usual eccentric ways ;)

If you managed to get through all of this well done, you deserve a cookie! ;) Thanks for reading!

On a final note we got a new housemate for the week whilst her dad is away on holiday. She's a leopard gecko and is quite stunning with her gorgeous markings and those stunning cunning eyes... the mealworms don't stand a chance!

She also has the best reptilian smile I've ever seen :)

Have a Great Day :)

COMMISSIONS - OPEN

Originals of the featured work available, leave a comment if interested.

Ratty People!

Rats are adorable. Fancy rats or pet rats are one of the most awesome rodents you can own as a pet, they are like a mixture of cats and dogs. There's the independence of a cat but also the love and playfulness of a dog. They are fantastic little critters who I've spent my life with for the last ten years.

I am a big rat fan and even managed to turn my partner into a rat fan too. They're addictive and just so awesome.

Unfortunately I have now developed an extreme allergy to them so have taken to drawing them instead! It's lots o fun to draw their cheeky playfulness.

Quick fact! A group of rats is called a mischief.

And boy do they live up to that name! A group of rats are the most cheeky group you can find and will run circles around anyone for fun.

I now have a few of my designs up on redbubble! If you're interested in a sticker or something of the little mischiefs go HERE

Or if you'd like to commission a personal image of your own ratty people get in touch HERE