Catching up

Ooops, hello there. You caught me reading the male human's bird book. He joined the RSPB last week and this book was the free gift for joining.



As well as twitching, I have been busy with arty exploits here and there. I really had a fancy for some spraying so got out my favourite colour Dylusions sprays and had a bit of a spritz, first directly onto the page and then some ghosting by spraying water through a stencil. I love this effect. I have no idea what I'll do with this page but the spritzing was great fun, and for once I managed not to redecorate the walls at the same time.


I also took part in another Lifebook class, this time by the very talented Donna Downey. The idea was to create using only black and white. Donna painted a beautiful vase of flowers, I sploshed some paint around a bit!!!


To assuage my hunger whilst painting, Podgy made me the most delicious malt loaf. Yum, I had mine with Butter and Marmite.


Lastly, but not leastly.... Another Lifebook class. This one was called Fearless Painting. Annie Hannan (or Hamman, I forget sorry) paints in collaboration with her 3 year old daughter and says the process of ruining your painting so you can fix it is freeing as you don't get so attached to your work or try for perfection. I couldn't bring myself to paint quite so freely as she allowed her daughter to on her painting, so I added some magazine image eyes, a nose and mouth to make mine more fun. I really enjoyed this class.


Now it's time for a snack and a lie down, us bears need our sleep and nourishment you know.

ttfn

Love from Horace

Mundane Monday

Hello, it's Horace your favourite blogging bear again. Isn't it miserable out today? ( UK). Unremitting rain which on occasion turns to snow, and a definite chill in the air too. Brr. I'm glad I have my fur coat to keep me warm.

Anyway, where are my manners?? I bought you all some chocolates to share for Valentine's Day yesterday. Form an orderly queue.



So, I guess you want to know what I've been up to? Apart from copious amounts of sleeping, I've been enjoying this year's Lifebook lessons, and think the classes are even better than last year. This may have something to do with the fact that this year I'm journalling into a book, so can see the pages building up. Whereas last year I journalled onto separate sheets of paper.

One of Tam's ( Tamara Laporte - Lifebook creator) classes was called Quirky Birds. These were so much fun to sketch. The idea was to draw birds of various shapes then give them personalities of people you love, or things that resonate with you. I decided to make my birds into the humans I live with, and their cub.


First, the human who belongs to me. She has a love of reading, especially Dickens, so of course she had to have a book under her wing. She also suffers temperature control problems so I gave her a nice wooly hat and scarf to keep her warm!! I used foreign book pages to decorate her as she also has a love of languages.


The cub is very girly, so I gave her cute pigtails in her hair, and made it long, as she always wears her hair long. She is decorated with sheet music pages as she loves music. She has a penchant for wearing odd socks, so of course the bird had to have odd socks too. Finally she has high shoes and a fashionable handbag. Isn't she cute?


The male human loves pastys, Cornish pasties to be precise. Off I went to sketch him a pasty shaped head and eyes, and a nice big pasty under his wing, in case of hunger ( he loves his food). The male human also really likes walking, so what better decoration that a map?


I was having such fun with these birds. I could draw them over and over again, and I may just do that at some stage in my Dylusions journal.


For the time being though, I thought I should finish what I started. So I set to painting the birds and background.



I loved this class and am looking forward to the next Lifebook classes. I hope you've been having as much fun with your art as I am with mine.

ttfn!

Love from Horace

In No Particular Order

Well hello there once again dear friends. Once out of the blogging habit it is hard to get back into. I keep deleting all my photos once I've posted them to Instagram, then realising I need them for the blog posts. Oh well.

I've been keeping myself busy with art as much as possible to distract from the fact that last year's surgery may need to be repeated. Keeping all paws crossed that it's not the case but the pain is back with a vengeance. For those who don't know, last year was spent travelling to and fro the hospital, trying to find an answer for my unremitting back and hip pain. Turns out that once the powers that be eventually listened, I had an MRI which showed a disc prolapse that needed immediate attention. Because of the delay in diagnosis I'm left with permanent nerve damage, so now I can say I get on my own nerves. Haaaaaaaa.

Anyhoo, I am thankful that I can still sit at the desk and create in stages. I recently completed a couple of Lifebook lessons, one was a class where we sketched a box which was to be filled with words of wisdom we'd learnt over the years. I adapted mine a little and made mine a box of inspiration with a quote to inspire me too. For the background I scraped texture paste through a stencil, it looks like more words of inspiration I think.


I decided the quote needed to be bolder so wrote over it in black Posca pen.


Another lesson was to journal all we wanted to leave behind in 2015 and cover over with happy. I started by journalling everything I'd like to leave behind. You can see some of the words poking through the Gessoed page. I then added a background page of trees from the human's nature type magazine, and a bear from a postcard.


I then added some texture paste. Which had been mixed with green paint. I scraped it on through a stencil once again, decided it was too in your face, and toned it down with yet more Gesso.


I finished the page with a sentiment - life is an adventure, as is the Lifebook course, which I can't get enough of right now.

I'm off to watch another lesson. TTFN.

Love from Horace