Happy Christmas

It’s that time again! For the second year running we have temperatures in the minus department, considering that in over 30 years living in Ballycotton I have only seen snow three times before you will realise how significant this is. However our life hasn’t been unduly affected unlike all those poor people stranded in airports desperately trying to get home.

It’s very hard on the birds in this kind of weather so I am constantly filling up the feeders and putting out apples , especially now the likes of this fella have started to visit. Fieldfares and Redwings arriving from Northern Europe are starving and are desperately looking for food and are having a hard time competing  with the local Thrushes.

On a different theme, I have finally got round to setting up my Etsy shop, although I only have a few items there at the moment , however it is now possible to purchase my art from this source and here are a couple of examples.

Black Tulip

This is an original watercolour ACEO, measuring 3.5”x2.5”

To Purchase click here

Apple Blossom

This is an original watercolour ACEO measuring 2.5”x3.5”

To Purchase click here

Snow again

Had a fall of snow last night which made the roads lethal and had to cancel my art class this morning because many of the class were snowed in. We just cannot handle snow in Ireland, mainly because we don’t get very much, especially in the south, but I suspect we are going to have to get used to it as this is the second year in a row. I’m sure this sounds strange to those of you who get snow every year, but if you consider that I have lived in Ireland for over 30 years and I think this is only the 4th or 5th time I have seen snow.

With the hard weather it is more important to keep feeding the birds, and it gives me more opportunities to sketch the likes of this stunning Goldfinch

 

Winter Visitor

Sitting at my computer yesterday , trying to do some work, between watching the comings and goings at my bird feeders, when this fellow caught my eye. It’s a male Brambling , a member of the Finch family and a fairly uncommon , though annual, winter visitor to Ireland. I was glad to see that he is still around this morning and holding his own with the aggressive Greenfinches and Chaffinches.

 

I seem to have gone back to my first love, painting birds, something I decided long ago to give up because there are so many truly brilliant wildlife artists out there, and I’m not one of them. But in the end I think you have to do what you want to do regardless of how good or bad the results are.

This is a small painting of a young male Blackbird, coming constantly to the apples I put out, during the recent cold spell we had I sometimes had to replenish the stocks three times a day, so voracious were the birds.