Twas the night before Christmas...

And all through the barn...  well, its like this:  Tripod likes very much to be the centre of attention and he goes about it in strange ways sometimes.  Literally 'in your face' he likes to remind you that he's there, usually around 3am as he stands on your chest and head butts you.

He's been poking around the Christmas parcels that have arrived, turning them over and examining them closely then putting them back under the tree.  When I went to the barn the other day to check on eggs, I discovered him sitting discussing gifts with the ducks.  Well Tripod was doing the talking, the ducks were sitting there rather bemused.   Next to him, was a red gift box.

Now I know Tripod's kind of gifts.  Like the one he promised Katherine Tyrrell last year after she gave him The Moose, so I have a little bit of a cause for concern about the contents.  I did tell him that sending Katherine another gift would not improve his chances of being a contender for The Moose again. Especially when the box moved a little as Tripod explained to the ducks that if they were good they could have some too...sort of like passing the chocolates around.  Let's just wait for Christmas morning shall we?  Sigh.

10 x 10 acrylic

Gyotaku highlighted

Today I received a copy of the Winter 2012 Conservation Magazine which purchased one time rights to use one of my gyotaku prints - Camoflaged Rainbow - in a feature article and on the cover.  Its a comprehensive magazine dealing with topical subjects that impact the natural world.  You can read the full article, Chasing Rainbows, that my art illustrated here.

The original gyotaku is in the collection of the Provincial Art Bank, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.  You can see the full piece or purchase fine art prints and note cards of this piece  purchased here.

Silver ornaments - in progress

I'm still undecorated for Christmas for the most part, but I'll get there.  As long as I have the tree up by Christmas Eve, I'll be doing fine.  I have been unearthing decorations and pulled out a couple of special ones.  These are Indian and the one on the left is a cone made of pale blue crazed glass captured in a cage of silver.  I love the intricate nature and detail of it.   The ornament on the right is silver, lined and indented in perfect symmetry.  They are too heavy to place on a tree, so they are reserved for a bowl or nestled in a centrepiece of greenery to give some sparkle from candle light.

I haven't done a pen and ink piece for a long time, and not one using pointillism.  It seemed I was foiled at every attempt by all my technical pens.  They were cleaned, emptied and put away after the last project, but still will not let ink flow to the nibs.  I turned eventually to a little Micron pen to satisfy my 'dotting' need.

Here is the progress of the piece so far.  I do a little dotting during the news or a few minutes in the morning before work then it slowly builds.  Perhaps it will become next year's Christmas card. Its on 9 x 12 Bristol smooth, the drawing itself is about 5 x 8 inches.

Fuzzy

This is a last minute Christmas gift portrait of my mother's cat.   When you're 87, it becomes a challenge to find gifts that are needed or wanted.  Her cats play a role in her life, so I thought a portrait may make a good gift idea.

This cat, like many others she has adopted over the years arrived as one of the kittens from a pregnant cat that seemed to think my mother's house was the maternity ward.  It was hand raised as the owner of the mother cat claimed it back, and left one of the kittens as thanks, but really too soon to be taken from its mother.   The cat is probably 13 or 14 years old now, a huge, long haired beast, with enough fur to withstand a Siberian winter.

This painting was done from a blurry cell phone image of the cat, so there's a bit of guesswork and reference to other similarly coloured cats that had to be done. There is another cat, mostly black, at my mother's house, but it never stays still long enough to get an image of it.  So the companion piece for this may have to wait.

The painting is 8" x 8" in acrylic on a canvas panel.