Life in general

Snow drops in Dymock woods

Willow at work with Barney the labrador

Well I have neglected my blog, my artwork and my website lately but I'm afraid life in general has gotten in the way. It's breeding time for all of the fowls and we have been busy moving them about to ensure pure breeds and it#s a job which still isn't finished. We've had to lay all the nest boxes with straw and pair up all the loose birds so that we can produce as many eggs as possible.

We've also sourced another 50 odd rescue chickens, we will be collecting these early next month from the same farm as last year as the ones we have had for the past year are laying like it's going out of fashion!

I've also been doing lots of dog training with Willow. She is quite well behaved but is a little wary of strangers and does become a little aloof when they approach. She is a bundle of fun with people she knows well but is almost anti social when strangers try to pet her. So far we've had great success with stopping her barking at passers by our gate and walkers in the wood and she will just sit and let them pass although she does grump under her breath a little, in contrast to a few weeks ago when she would race up to them barking this is an amazing step forward hopefully we will also sort the fact that strangers are also good to give a cuddle too!

I've also replanted both of my mammoth fish tanks, this does cause me immense problems as they are both so deep I have to put my entire arm in up to my shoulder to reach the bottom so I got a bit wet and wrinkly aquascaping!

I've received a few commissions now and will be cracking the whip with these soon and I need to figure out the best course of action now blogger will not allow ftp publishing after May. It took some head scratching and mind boggling for me to figure out how to set up my blog on my website but now they are taking this feature away (why offer it in the first place then?) so I need to decide between going back to a blogspot address or learning wordpress. I'm very annoyed with blogger so I should go to wordpress and make a stand but with a full time job plus a small holding and part time art work to contend with I'm just not sure I will have the time. Once I make my descision I'll post it so everyone will know where I disappear to!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.
Thank you for visiting!

Snow, ice and cold weather!

Yet more snow, in a few hours we were snowed in and cut off from the world again...hooray!

As you can see the dogs still want to be outside playing and luckily for Willow, her thick coat means she is totally ignorant to how cold snow actually is!

Zac on the other hand prefers to stay a little dryer, but he's such a pretty boy, it would be a shame if he got too messy!

What a poser he is!

And then he investigates the igloos made by the bamboo bent over with snow, he found a network of these tunnels, we do have quite a few bamboo areas, I really think it's more like a plantation and he had hours of fun mooching about underneath them all!

And just a bit of info, this is the bottom of our garden, we are one step away from the wood, if you follow the little path down it leads to places such as Dancing Green, Kettle Bottom, Hoovers Lane, Watery Lane and Hope Mansell to name but a few of the quirky places we live near!

I've sorted out a new piece of wildlife art to start but I'm holding out for the cat photos to arrive before I get stuck in!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Pet Portraits and Wildlife Display

As promised some pics from my display, I was slighty disappointed (more than a little actually) that I didn't have more portraits to cover the walls. It seems I will need to get some more example portraits sorted out for future displays! More work!

Anyway, when we got home it turned out to be quite a nice afternoon so we all went out to play in the garden

And as you can see Willow and her football took centre stage. Willow is obsessed with football, she has 3 and carries them around with her everywhere just on the off-chance someone somewhere will throw it for her. She has lost them in hedges, in the wood and in the boot of the van due to her inability to be parted from her torn and chewed piece of rubber! She has now taken to following me relentlessly and dropping it on my feet to ensure I notice she wants to play!

I also thought I'd show you all the silver version of the appenzellar you met yesterday (here is one of the Elvis' as well)

And then I wandered around the garden and actually realised for the first time that at least 2/3 of our pets are rescued either because animals and birds have been dumped on us, were facing death or because we took pity on them! The 3 chickens above are from 36 we rescued from an egg laying farm in the Hendre in Wales. After a year of prolific laying hens are usually slaughtered because they lay less, they still lay mind you and we get an ample supply from them. We travelled quite some way to get a few but found they had 10,000 birds about to be replaced so we threw the bird cages on the back seat and rammed as many as we could into the boot of our car as well. It did turn out to be a very messy business but these hens have repaid us dividends by laying well and mowing the orchard!!! When we collected them, most were bald and looking quite poorly, in fact a few did die from poor health but the rest are now happy bunnies and run around in the orchard all day long.

Then we have Pierre (at the front). He was about to end up on a dinner plate, we were assured he was female, alas it was untrue and now he is embroiled in a torrid ménage à trois with George and Mildred. He has tried unsuccessfully for 3 years to part them but they have eyes only for each other and even with the addition of several other 'spare' females, he is uninterested and insists on trying to lure Mildred away (grey and white goose) much to George's annoyance and he manages to give Pierre a hefty peck every now and then to put him in his place. Pierre got his name as he is half Toulouse Utility so we said he was a bit french!

We've also gained 6 speckled sussex hens from a lady who was getting divorced and had too little time for them, they are lovely birds but don't actually lay so now we know why she gave up on them! Still we've kept them for a few years and I'm sure they are relieved to know they won't face the chop!

You've all met Willy the chocolate dutch rabbit, he was ordered from a pet shop by a lady who wanted a pair but then didn't want the male, he was left in the shop all alone with no friend for over 6 months until we popped in one day.... the rest they say is history!

Then a very sad tale, Bobtail and Rag are 2 of 3 brothers, I did also have Tag at one point. I saw these 3 when we collected some guinea fowl, their owner was old fashioned and set in his ways, and he bred rabbits to eat them. Not the usual New Zealand whites bred by everyone else and kept in the shed, he had been given some pet rabbits and had used these as his breeding stock but he also allowed his grandson to play with them so they were all quite tame. I spent a whole weekend fretting about them but had to go back to buy them from him, the very sad thing was he would not let me buy their mother as she was used for breeding. He lived about 1/2 mile away and I could never visit there again until he died, we went to rehome his geese!!!

I could go on and on with a story for each pet we own but I wonder what happens to all those other little pets that become too much of a hassle, I hope there are plenty of other softies like me out there that keep taking them in because the thought of what happens to them if they aren't so lucky just makes me feel just so sad.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Cat Portraits, Charlie

Well things have been very slow going with the cat this week, sorry, I've become caught up in the website yet again. And sorry about the flash yet again too! As you all know from my last post I revamped the site and uploaded it, however I am now lost in cyberspace and having a very heated ongoing email conversation with my host and after they have kindly taken my money for a couple of years, I'm very disappointed in their speed of response let alone help in fixing things. I am beginning to lose my patience (I have very little) and have been looking for a new host who will be much more helpful in times of future disaster!

Also, after another violent snow flurry, we were able to get outside in the garden today. On Friday I popped into the village and within 20 minutes the snow had covered the road and cars were pulling up on pavements, it was bizarre, I've never seen it settle and cover so quickly, then no more snowfall! Unfortunately it froze overnight and yesterday was bitter cold and icy so the bunnies and guinea pigs stayed inside. Today was a different matter though and we all went out to play, including Willow above who as always...just wants to play football!!!

This is one of our golden appenzellar cocks we bred last year. These are funny breed and come in a silver version too. They are quite nosey and cheeky but will follow you all around the garden. Each of the golden cocks has been nick-named Elvis due to the 'hair quiff' and at the moment we have 3 of them, I never know which is which so I just call them all the same....Elvis! Good job they don't get offended!

And introducing the latest project, this is a dexta and Ronnie has been collecting spare parts for it from far and wide, spot his helpful hen trotting under the back of the tractor, you can just see her tail feathers. She loves working in the shed with him and has taken to pecking Gypsy on the tail when they come into contact!

I can also tell something is afoot, Ronnie has been reorganising his tractor shed which currently should house 4 tractors, 2 landrovers and 2 morris minors however, all of the tractors are out, plus the land rovers have been moved to leave additional space, one morris is now outside and tools have been tidied away so I guess we are awaiting delivery of some other vehicle! Oh well, we are more like Steptoes back yard now than a country cottage!!!

I'm off to set up my display tomorrow so I will take some photos to blog aswell. Then you will see I do actually manage to do some art every now and then!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Busy framing pet portraits and wildlife art

I have been busy I promise! I've had some advice about the major issues with my website (thank you so much Alex) and decided to follow her instructions therefore I have been working all weekend on my website - see the snippet above. I've added commission guides to help with the buying process plus I've added a section about myself for clients and visitors alike to get to know what happens behind the easel! You all know I have many many animals but I guess that's about all you know so as time goes by more and more will be added to this section. I've also had a tidy up and used the same template now for all the pages and at last it looks more consistent although I'm having major problems with my links though, they have all gone haywire so until this problem is fixed I cannot publish, otherwise visitors could get lost!

Aside from this we have had quite a busy weekend, yesterday we rescued two geese who had been destined for the Christmas dinner table, long winded story but they were fostered for a while by the most unlikely couple (one is a ranger and despatches animals as part of his job) but he and his girlfriend took a shine to them and allowed them to run around in their garden. We have named them Bonnie and Clyde as they have escaped for a life in the country! They were transported home in a large dog cage and we must have looked a little odd with these two geese flailing about on the back of our truck through the rural lanes! We safely deposited them in the big pen with the other 14 geese and I stood inside waiting for mayhem and fighting, geese always fight at this time of year because of breeding but the female is a little small so I thought she may need a bit of assistance, however, they all greeted each other and set about making goosey noises with just a minor bit of feather pulling so I was able to take the video below to show you how they got on. Bonnie and Clyde are the grey skull cap but mainly white gander and the small pure white goose who stayed by his side.

Also today was reasonably warm so I left all of my rabbits and guinea pigs out in their pens as I framed and stringed up portraits ready for my display which I will be putting up the week after next. I also checked on our geese and they are all very happily ignoring each other which is amazing.

Anyway as I was sorting out my website I came across this photo of Willow, this was during one of my visits before she came home with us, wasn't she tiny?!? Plus I'd forgotten how she stared at me everytime we went to visit and that was why I chose her, I almost changed my mind to a huge long fur sable dog but I stuck to my guns just because she had eyes only for me...

she's a heartbreaker, the problem is she has grown to an immense size and from what I can gather, she still has about 6 months of growing to do.... how much is that dog food?!?!

and still the eyes stare at me...

As for Charlie the cat, the portrait has progressed since the last update, she is now sat in a stone window, I say sat but she has not legs so the update would look very bizarre but I will take a shot very soon.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Cat Portraits, Charlie

copyright Karie-Ann Cooper 2010

Meet Charlie. Charlie is 13 or 14 and is now relaxing in her later years. She used to be a prolific hunter but is now more often than not, found in one of 3 places; the window sill where she can gaze outside and also keep her eye on her canine companions; her owner's bed where she likes to curl up at night keeping her mum's feet warm on these cold winter nights and finally on the wooden rack shown in the reference image. From here she can watch over her garden but also quickly make an entrance into the house (an old cider mill) when she feels a chill or a catnap brewing!

Well the weather was half right, half wrong, the snow storm started 6 hours early and lasted for 18 hours instead of just overnight. We are now coated yet again in a thick white blanket and depending on which weather report you chose, we are either freezing and creating more ice-rink roads for tomorrow or melting! I think the reporters are just trying to cover all bases and then they can't be accused of getting things wrong!
We spent most of the morning uncovering the electric fencing again and I also cleaned out all of my bunnies and guinea pigs, no doubt they are going stir crazy as the lawn is under about 8 inches of snow and I think my guinea pigs would sink below the surface. As a bit of respite for them they were each allowed a run around in the bottom of the shed (the rabbits) and the guinea pigs came up to the house to watch television from the comfort of the sofa. I daren't let them run around the floor as they aren't used to electric cables and could take a little nibble of one!
And so to relieve your boredom....no snow pics today, instead Sooty and Sweep are putting in an appearance and saying hello!

Sooty

Sweep

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Wildlife Art, Tiger

I did say I'd been getting on with my wildlife art! I've been so sorely disappointed with the weather today, we were supposed to suffer heavy snowfall which would have prevented us going to work tomorrow, but I had hoped the very large amount of remaining snow would melt to make our journey into work easier, instead it's the thick compacted snow/ice which is all the way down to the main road. We took all of the dogs down to the road to see if things had improved and although the main road is much better, we still have to fight our way out and take the big dipper ride down the steep track to get out. As a result, I've been sulking, I've updated my website and got on with this tiger painting and moaned and mumbled at myself that tomorrow will be horrendous, wet and cold!

Anyway here is the obligatory snowy picture from today's walk, look at that road!!!

And a little video of my dogs in the snow

I do apologise it's not very interesting but my batteries went flat and I did cuss a bit too!!!
If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Wildlife Art news and more snowy pics!

You will be pleased to know the artwork is still underway, I've been working on the tiger wildlife art painting and it is taking shape however as per usual the lighting is pretty dismal so I have no update picture to offer, instead I have a few more pics of the local scenery which is still under cover of the thick and now frozen blanket of white snow. We have suffered another flurry this evening and depending on which channel's weather report you listen to, we are due more flurries tomorrow and a heavy fall on Sunday and Monday or just the Sunday/Monday version with Saturday being just freezing temperatures. We have now given up trying to second guess what happens with the predictions and just do what everyone else is probably doing, turning on the outside light and watching the snow fall! The two exits out are down very steep narrow lanes and anymore snow is just a nightmare waiting to happen. We've already found a car wrapped around a road sign at the bottom of the one way and we are quite reluctant to join the dented car/truck brigade anytime soon.
Anyway, as you can guess, dogs being dogs, just love the snow, Willow thinks every solid lump of snow is a ball to toss up and catch, Zac the spaniel loves to roll about in it and Gypsy, although suffering with the short leg syndrome and struggles in the deep drifts, will not leave our sides and stays out faithfully as we refill chicken water bowls until she is shaking with cold. We have tried to put her inside the house by the fire but she has smashed through the cat flap so many times now it's just not worth the effort!
We did actually make it into work today only to be told to go home, the main road was as bad as our track and I was very grateful to make it back in one piece.
So, here are the photos I promised, no doubt most other blogs from England, Wales and Scotland feature snowy pictures, but mine are mine and they belong on my blog!

This is the view from the side of our house. All of the fields belong to farmers and we could hear their trucks beeping as there was no other traffic whatsoever today.

A snowy tree in the woods behind my house

And the main track, for once it looks almost standard, but beneath the snow it's just forestry track! The tracks are from the tractor on the farm next door, and Gypsy did appreciate the tyre tracks to run in!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

A day of snow and ice

Today was good and bad, we finished work early due to the severe weather we were having and are still due to have which was good, unfortunately for us, we live so far away from any main roads it was already too treacherous to drive home so we had to park up our van and walk home along the track shown above to our house. Having said that it wasn't that bad, we'd stopped at the chip shop and bought some chips which we ate as we wondered home!

 As you can see no one had been there before us on our trek! Willow bravely led the way and I only fell over once, landing on my knee and hopping all the way home!!!



And here is our house not long after the snow began to fall, the flakes were getting bigger and stickier!



And why did the chicken cross the road! My two wildlly viscious killer dogs just watch as a hen saunters by across the garden

So I decided to take some more photos and here are my two trusty assistants who check lighting and focus at every turn!

Not forgetting Gypsy who does suffer in the snow due to her lack of height, she seems to sink with every paw step!

Here is my beautiful Zac, he's a bit of a snow baby and he eats it, rolls in it and runs around in it! Isn't he handsome!

And finally some of my geese out in the snow, they skate more than waddle in this weather, the other half were wise and stayed in their shed all huddled up in the straw. Clever birds!

And going back to art, I have indeed tried to keep to my intentions of producing more art work, I've actually started a new wildlife portrait and will blog that next, just to keep you in suspense! I've got some more 'portraits to do' images to add and will do that next just to keep you all up to date.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Dog Portraits, Willow, Gypsy and Zac

Well Christmas has been hectic, as well as how chaotic it is for shopping, present buying and wrapping etc I've had a rush on portraits to contend with as well, other pet portrait artists will know eactly what I mean. However, I took Christmas Day and Boxing Day off but I do feel slightly lost without a pencil in my hand and am now back to full steam ahead with this dog portrait from some time ago which I put away when commissions had started to build up. As you can see I still have a way to go and it is quite a large portrait so it should keep me out of trouble.
Aside from this I've been trying to decide whether or not to carry on with portraits, this Christmas was manic, due to the number of portraits to do plus I also work full time, the stress was quite unbearable at times. That said I do enjoy it, and I think the main reason for my stress was the fact that I am so disorganised, I really do muddle along. Instead of working things in order to have things finished in time I tend to work the pieces I find most interesting and then I have a mad rush to catch up so I am giving myself the challenge of not getting in that situation again. Having said that, I have a solo display in February for a whole month and now need to produce some more work as the gallery will need to be filled up! So here is my first challenge for the year, to actually sit down and make myself do art instead of fiddling about with my website which I do a lot, all to no avail, I have risen in the search engines and for a complete novice I think I've done quite well, I could do better I'm sure but after being inundated and turning away clients at Christmas I can't be that invisible so perhaps I could leave it for now.
Anyway, my blog readers will soon know if I am keeping to my new rules, art, art, and more art instead of seeming to leave things to just mount up. We'll see!

However, in true tradition I will keep up the animal pics for you all to see, so here are a few more!

This was Elvis our peacock, he and his girlfriend Fanny the peahen turned up on our lawn one afternoon when we came home from work, we never knew if they flew there or were dumped (peacocks do make a lot of noise) but once they arrived, they never left. Elvis was besotted with Fanny, but it was a case of unrequited love and although he displayed his finery as shown above, she simply stalked off everytime in the other direction, in fact it was true to say, Fanny felt Elvis was a right royal pain and would disappear and hide from him. Elvis would strut all over the garden and orchard looking for her, and once he'd caught a glimpse of his beloved Fanny his tail feathers would start to shimmer and he would chase her around shaking his feathers, all to no avail.

We were never sure how old they were but after about 5 or 6 years with us Fanny died, and not long after so did Elvis of a broken heart I'm sure.

And this was Matilda, she absolutely refused to be shut in a pen, all our chickens are let out to wander around the garden and of their own accord they return to pens as dusk falls and we simply shut the doors, however, Matilda steadfastly refused to be shut away and every afternoon when we returned from work, she would race up to our vehicle to meet us, she almost came a cropper a few times getting very close to the wheels in her eagerness! Unfortunately Matilda did die but luckily it was of old age and sometimes it's a bit sad not to see her racing up the lawn to greet us. She followed Ronnie about and decided she should pose on his newly refurbished tractor for prosperity.

And here she is again, never far from the action, with Zac the spaniel waiting for a bit of bread to be thrown at her.

Plus meet Zebedee, this is the kitten I gave my sister for Christmas after she lost her turkish van, Tiggy after 14 years. He stayed with us overnight and we named him Shrek as it was on tele that night! Apparantly he's climbing everywhere and already tried to get into the washing machine!

And of course, not forgetting Willow, here she is on her new christmas bed made by my sister. Willow seemed to like the kitsch leopard print, she's got taste you know!

Entry has now closed for the pet portrait competition 2009/2010 however you can see all of the entries here and voting polls will be added by 1st January 2010 but you can also leave voting comments from the New Year here so do join in as soon as voting begins.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower. If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. The competition has closed for this year but there will be a new one in 2010. Join in the fun and vote for this year's winner by following the links here.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website
Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!

Snowy weather

Although it looks very pretty, this is where we were working this week and it has been unkindly cold!

So we built a fire and toasted our toes in between freezing to death!

Doesn't that make you feel all warm and cosy...

Willow and myself curled up by the fire for our break and enjoyed ourselves, until break was over that was.

Then we found a broken and abandoned sleigh, so of course as all grown up children do, we had a go

And Willow and Barny looked very grown up until....

They decided it was playtime too!

I have now finished Hattie and have almost finished Dave and Laura so I will post an update as soon as I can, then I'm having a rest!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower.

Entries are no longer being accepted for this years pet portrai, however voting begins on January 1st 2010 so please see my new competition.to vote for your favourite image.

If you are interested in commissioning me please visit my pet portrait artist website or my wildlife artist website

Now visit my picasa photo album to see completed pieces of art.

Thanks for visiting!