Category Archives: At Home

#Caturday Saturday

Aaaaaand it’s that time of the week again, when the world puts their cats on show. I started sketching Sparta Puss earlier, when she was asleep, then she woke up and walked away. She’s a tortoiseshell, or maybe a calico, but mostly black with flashes of ginger and white socks. Adorable.

Advanced Scribbling

I did a very quick scribble of a building when I was out and about a few weeks ago, just a few minutes to capture the outline and some key features. Today I spent a little while working into it, making a range of marks with a ballpoint pen. I find that mark-making is veryContinue reading “Advanced Scribbling”

#Caturday Saturday

Someone gave me some slightly used Derwent AQUAtone watercolour sticks to try out (they’re now discontinued). I have a sheet of Khadi handmade paper. And I have a stencil in the shape of our little rescue cat Bill aka William Chatnoir. I’m planning to have some fun here.

Got The Blues…

I tried out some cyanotype prints the other day, when the sun was really strong. I’m not happy with the result, it’s too blue, there’s no white, no contrast. I gave the prints 5 minutes in the sunshine and I think I might have over-exposed them. The instructions on the packet of chemicals were vagueContinue reading “Got The Blues…”

#Caturday Archives: 22

Here’s a very old sketch of the late, great Bobbit. We had her as a kitten of 8 weeks way back in the summer of 1994, and this sketch is from 2011, when she was enjoying the sun by dozing in a drain! She died a few weeks later aged 17, enjoying the sunshine andContinue reading “#Caturday Archives: 22”

Printing In The Sunshine

I coated some Bockingford papers with cyanotype chemicals last week and today, after a week of up-and-down weather, I took advantage of the brilliant sunshine to make some sunprints, using transparencies that I’ve had for ages. I originally used them for screenprints so it’s nice to reuse them with a different technique. Here’s the coatedContinue reading “Printing In The Sunshine”

Rubbing The Cat With Graphite!

I carried on today with the miniprint design I started a few days ago, using my smallest Flexcut tools. I put a piece of tracing paper over the lino and rubbed it hard with graphite block to see if I’d cut away everything I wanted to. I also gave the lino block a rub with the graphite,Continue reading “Rubbing The Cat With Graphite!”

#Caturday Archives: 21

Here’s a blast from the past for this week’s #Caturday Saturday, from 2011. Husb and I had two naughty torties, Bobbit and Ming. They hated each other but had to learn to live together for many years. I drew this just a few weeks before Bobbit died, of very old age. She was very poorlyContinue reading “#Caturday Archives: 21”

Too Many Superstitions!

Husb and I came back this evening from a nice day out in Newcastle Emlyn to find this young jackdaw in the house. It had flown down a chimney and settled in our back bedroom. It wasn’t hurt, despite having two cats in the house at the time; so much for apex predators! We thinkContinue reading “Too Many Superstitions!”