14/02: LOVE IS IN THE AIR

David and I are so boring .... we don't exchange Valentine Cards or send red roses (but the house is full of daffodils at the moment which I much prefer)!        I am, however, cooking David's favourite Dinner for him tonight which he will appreciate far more than a Clinton card (having said that, its probably bah-humbug people like us that contributed to the demise of Clinton as we rarely purchased their merchandise)!!

But .... love is definitely in the air and on the minds of the garden birds.

The nesting boxes have been regularly inspected over the last few days and I'm fairly certain we'll be seeing young blue tits being raised in the garden this Spring ....

 the snow has gone, and we've had lots of drizzly wet stuff for the last day or two - all the fruit trees were dripping this morning .....

but at least all the bird water trays/baths got filled up with no effort from me. 

This robin had a great time in his bath today making himself pretty

He wasn't too happy about being observed I think

OK a little more progress on the family group portrait.   I've emailed this progress picture to my client tonight but I always get a bit twitchy about sending progress pics too soon - there is still a lot of refining to be done to hair and skintones etc ... but I promised an update today so I've sent it - hope it doesn't scare him too much

My mum-in-law has been poorly and admitted to hospital yesterday so no art yesterday and I'll be hospital visiting tomorrow.  I'll work more on this at the weekend to have another update ready early next week.   This is where I got to today:

12/02: SQUIRREL 1 SUE 1

Well, the squirrels still haven't figured out how to spring the Bulldog clip I used to secure the peanut feeder (my post 2 days ago) but this little blighter decided to take his revenge by digging out my patio pots today:

Look at the smirk on his face ....

to say nothing of the mud on his nose and paws

but I'm still claiming the moral victory as they haven't been able to get to the peanuts and fatballs come a poor second best ..... especially when you have to work this hard to get them

and as for the arty stuff ...... another update on the family group portrait: 

I'm using mostly Polychromos (Faber-Castell) and Royal Talens Van Gogh pencils.   The Van Gogh pencils are rated very highly on the colour fastness charts but aren't easy to get hold of in the UK.   I only have a limited collection so have had to use a few Prismacolors as well as the Polychromos