Snow Leopard Wildlife Art

Just a quick update. I think I shall be putting this one aside for a while as I have a few commissions I need to get done so say goodbye to this snow leopard for a while!

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

Thanks for visiting!

Snow Leopard Wildlife Art

Currently I'm still waiting for a cat photo of Lucky but in the meantime Bramble has appeared on my 'to do' list (top right column) plus I've also done a bit of 'me art' in the form of the snow leopard shown above.

The leg looks stightly out of kilter but the leopard is climbing upwards and hopefully when I complete more of the painting it will begin to make sense!!!

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

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!

Wildlife Art, Tiger and Dog Portraits framed

I've now completed the tiger painting in general, I've not decided what to do with the background but I have bought an airbrush kit so it may come into play. The thing is I've never used one before so it will take a lot of trial and error before I'm brave enough to use it properly. I'm not even sure if I can use it after the wildlife art has been completed or whether I should have used it first!

And the group dog portrait is now framed too so I thought I'd just let you see it finished off completely. Unfortunately the light has caught on the left side again but it's unavoidable under the current daylight bulbs I have to use.

Still lots of snow hanging around and we are due another heavy snow storm tonight, whether or not it will arrive is another matter, those weather reporters need shooting, they can't get it right for love nor money!

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!

Wildlife Art, tiger

As promised here is the first installment of the tiger I have started. I love big cats and tigers and leopards are my favourite. I would like to fit in more wildlife art and I think big cats are wonderful subjects. This is still very early days and there is a lot more work to do before this piece of wildlife art is completed so stay tuned for more news soon!

It snowed quite a lot over night and we have about 9 inches of snow, there is a new severe weather warning for our area for the forthcoming freezing conditions which are due in tonight and will not prove very helpful at all!
Anyway we have been busy outdoors until lunchtime and we walked a fair few miles out to the main road but this is also closed so we won't be going anywhere very soon!

Obviously our crew helped us attend to all the chickens and although he hates having his photo taken, Zac is very pretty and always look good on film!

And Willow it seems loves snow, although she does stand out a bit!

Anyway, this was the start of our 2 1/2 hour trek down to the main road....

....which was delayed slightly by the continuous dog fighting!

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 Art

To all of my valued followers and readers, twitter and facebook followers, please note my blog will now be at this new address very shortly:

www.artbykarie-ann.co.uk/blog.html

Please update our blog rolls and go to the new address to follow me again to keep up to date with my latest news on my pet portraits and wildlife art. You may find the blog undergoing changes but please be patient as I sort things out.

With many thanks to you all for your conitnued support.
Karie.

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. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

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!

If you go down in the woods today....

At last I have had a close encounter with some boar, I say at last because it did turn out to be a bit of a relief! We met 12 piglets and 2 sows and at a guess the sows were last year's young as they were large dog sized, probably about 80lbs whereas the large boar are probably 3 times as heavy as that! The sows spotted us and started to trot off up into the woods and the little ones shot off like bats out of hell, they can hurdle and charge along faster than any other animal I've seen in the wood including deer! They must have had turbo engines! Willow was quite interested so I put her on a lead but this did prove very problematic as she kept going around the wrong side of the trees and we got a bit tangled up so I had to let her off again, luckily she was good and did not venture off sniffing so all is well in boarland! This one above is a Forest of Dean boar and the photo was taken by our previous wildlife ranger who has now moved to Lincoln but he kindly let me use it, I really am not sure I could have captured the troop on camera as for one thing they were so fast but for another I was too busy making sure Willow didn't give chase. Imagine meeting one of these in the dark!! No thank you!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). Thanks for visiting!

Also if you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Well they did say the weather was going to be bad today, so when Willow decided to wake me up at 6, I thought I'd get on with the leopard wildlife art which has been staring at me for a while! At long last every inch of paper is now covered! It was a long hard slog but I did finally get there and as we all know I'm sure to go back to edit areas and tweak this and that but on the whole you now get the general idea that everything is in place, phew! As for the weather, it has not rained one drop yet, sack the weather reporters I say, they really are rubbish.

And just because I can't help myself, here is the beautiful Willow, as always, waiting to play football, she is now so superb at catching the ball as soon as I kick it and before it touches the ground that I reckon she'll make the best England football goalkeeper ever! (although it may be my talents at the beautiful game are pretty poor)
I've also added lots of pictures to my flickr account from the steam rally at Abergavenny and you can see all of those panels here from the truck I posted yesterday plus I've changed my website to match my blog now so you can take a look at that here. I'm also working on SEO for my website and that does take time and effort but I am slowly creeping up the rankings but I'm sure this time next year I'll still be doing the same!!! Wish me luck.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

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

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by wildlife artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Ta da!!! Nearly there at last! This just gives you some idea of what will be happening in the background of this piece of wildlife art. There is still a considerable amount of work to do but at least things are now finally taking shape. I'm almost beginning to like this again now, it has been one of those love/hate things and now I'm on the downhill bit I'm forgetting how much hard work all that grey was!

Pickle update:

Still a bit poorly but he's taken all of his favourite hay to bed for his supper and he is currently running around the garden with his beloved Treacle. He is most indignant about taking his medicine and squeals and screams at me each morning when I try to give it to him and I think his temper gets the better of him as he tries to push the syringe out of his mouth with his little paws so there's a bit of fight in him yet then!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

Well this is the basics of the rock work now completed on the amur leopard wildlife art piece. It still needs blending and shading and highlighting (!) but no more rock work will be added...phew! It was quite hard work to get this far even with the break of a few weeks but now I intend to complete this one very soon.

Today was the Small-holders show at Builth Wells showground. This is one of the further shows we travel to and from now until late September there is one almost every weekend, sometimes two to go to. This is one of my favourite shows as it houses lots of animals from pigmy goats to prize winning bulls, today's excitement came when a group of piglets left their mum to break in with another family through bars in the next pen. There was a chaotic scramble to reunite piglets and mum without a minor disaster being created and eventually the last little piggy did decide to go home! As usual there was a tractor auction and lots of vintage tractors and cars to see and due to it being a long day with far too many people to contend with, I left Willow in the care of Ronnie's Mum, bearing in mind she is almost deaf as a post, she said Willow whined all day until I got back, at least she didn't eat a whole bag of doggie biscuits to herself this time!

And news on Pickle the guinea pig, Pickle seems to have recovered his appetite a little and is now nibbling at his dry food aswell, plus he is now starting to take water himself from his water bottle so things are looking a bit better, he still has a whole two weeks of antibiotics to take so hopefully before long he will be back to his old self again. He has also started to squeak at me a little so that's a very good sign. Hopefully the weather will hold off tomorrow and they can all go out to play in their pens under their new sunshade/raincover umbrellas I bought today from wet and windy Builth Wells (see I can't go anywhere without thinking of my little ones back home!)

And also you can view my entry into an online art competition here and voting begins on the 21st May so when I finally find out how voting takes place I will give you more details.

Anyway, after a very busy week, I'm now off to catch up on all of my favourite blogs I like reading to see what everyone else has been up to!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

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

Thanks for visiting!

Amur Leopard by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

I decided to drag out my amur leopard wildlife art and have a tinker with it to see if I had got over the 'grey' stage I had (too much grey for those who are new to this one) and it has helped to have put it down for a couple of weeks. I've now drawn out the background I want, although I do think it is too pale to see on here, but the rocks are continued a little but not too much before the rest of the background is put in place. So I will get this one done, even if only at a very slow pace.

Please see here for the previous stages of this portrait, you'll see what I mean about grey then!!!

I've also drawn out the family portrait and will start to blog that in earnest very soon.

And going back to my art competition entry, you can see this here but voting does not begin until tomorrow and I will provide full details of how to vote for me (please, I am asking very nicely)

And as for Pickle the guinea pig, he's still off colour, bless him he's huddled up in his purple igloo but he has managed to take a carrot, some baby sweetcorn and savoy cabbage to bed with him just in case he gets a little peckish. He is not drinking very well so I've resorted to washing all his greens and leaving them a bit wet but instead of his antibiotics being in his water I'm squirting them into his mouth so he has no chance of getting away from his 'medicine' and before I forget, thank you to those who have made comments about little Pickle, he's one of my favourites (can you have a favourite guinea pig? Is it like having a favourite child?) because he squeals at me when I go to the shed each morning until I hand feed him bits of carrot, he is quite relentless, but the past week or so he's just warbled a bit at me but hopefully with the magic potion from the animal doctor all will be well again very soon.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

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

Thanks for visiting!

Pet Portraits, Wildlife Art, Donations

A few bits of news for you all art-wise. I've entered my leopard wildlife art portrait into an online art competition and I need you all to vote for me, I'll sort the details out and post that in a couple of days time as the voting hasn't actually began yet so please help me out!

Also I've donated a few gift certificates to animal rescue organisations lately, and I have received an email from Elspeth at Hope Rescue to let me know they had raised a magnificent sum of over £2100 for their organisation which is fantastic in the current financial climate. Please visit the site www.hoperescue.org.uk if you can offer any help but also look to see the wonderful work they do. I'm awaiting images for this portrait but as yet I'm not sure if it will be a people or pets!

Another charity I donated to was www.fourpawsanimalrescue.org.uk Registered charity 1117893©2007 Four Paws Animal Rescue (South Wales) and I am looking forward to receiving the photos of the catagory winner of 'the handsomest hound'.

Please take the time to visit both of these websites as they do wonderful work, as you all know I have lots of rescue pets and animals, ranging from chickens to rabbits to dogs, but as my Mum says 'you can't rescue them all my love' so this is just a little something else I can do to help those poor little fluffy and feathery things that don't have a forever home yet.

And I've now received the proofs of my leopard wildlife painting, I decided to go to a professional printers who are very green and environmentally friendly and I'm so pleased with the results so as you all draw baited breath, prints will be available very soon!

Also I have some not too good news from the guinea pig and rabbit shed, poor Pickle the guinea pig is now very poorly, the vet treated him last week for cystitus and he did perk up a little but today he ahd to have a emergency trip to see the vet again and is now back on a very long course of antibiotics in the hope he will pick up. I took a trip to the supermarket, quite a distance to buy him all his favourite treats, cabbage, carrots, mini sweetcorn, french beans and cheerios so hopefully he's having a nibble on them now as I've tucked him into his little bed for the night. Fingers crossed he's perked up by tomorrow.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

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

Thanks for visiting!

Zebras by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

I've managed to get a little bit more done on the zebra wildlife art piece. I'm not sure if I like it yet, I knew I liked the leopard straight away but hopefully this will be a grower!

So far I've used mainly prismacolour pencils along with a few derwent artists but it is quite relentless, stripe after stripe, and there are two zebras to contend with, so instead of spots before my eyes it will be stripes!

Plus I've gotten around to framing the leopard, ready to take to the gallery so as soon as I have sorted things out, I'll update you all on that plus I will also announce the winner of my wildlife competition tomorrow so tune if you've entered.

And I've just been looking through my camera, and I have so many images I've never posted before so here are a few, with descriptions if I can remember where they all were!!! This is overlooking Ruardean, the 2nd next village to where I live. I took this photo from the back of Bishopswood when we worked there last year. This was some of the machinary used at Bishopswood when we went back to see how things looked after removing the trees we selected. Looks quite scary doesn't it!!! Uusally timber is sold standing meaning the contractor has to fell it themselves, however, this chestnut was felled to be sold at roadside so we had the measure the volume of it so it could go to auction. And this was on the steepest bank I'd been on at the time at Barnhill, the lighter area at the bottom is a very busy and fast main road, it was slippy too, I fell on my backside so many times I gave up counting after I got to twenty and that was on the first time down!!! And this little deer was as interested in us as we were in it. It stood and stared at us for a fair while in a place called Sallow Vallets. Eventually it just sauntered off back into the forest. This is at Westonbirt, another Forestry Commission centre. They have a lovely arboretum and we managed to see it as the leaves changed colour at the start of autumn last year. I've completely forgotten where this image was taken but the view speaks for itself, sometimes we work in places that just take my breath away and we are lucky enough to see them, even locals miss out as they just travel the beaten track whereas we go off out into the bramble and bracken to get views like this.... ...and this, which is at a place called Bark Rack just on the Welsh border. This one was taken near Yorkley and it was the beginning of spring when the sun had just started to peak out after gloomy winter. And finally, the motley crew ourselves, out in the woods at Red Marley

Hope you enjoy my pictures, I've got some more to post tomorrow.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

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

Thanks for visiting!

Zebras by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

And now the second zebra is starting to appear on this piece of wildlife art. This took a good 4 hours work to reach here from the last stage. This I think is why I love pencils, you can dot around from one area to the next without having to layer everything, no drying times and when you get bored with one bit, you move onto the next. I love their mohicans, a hair-do like theirs would have taken a few hours in front of the mirror and a pound of wax! Thankfully that fashion has now passed us by.

As for the tractor sale yesterday, I suppose you could call it successful, we bought 1 loader, 1 bucket for one of the tractors plus a rotavator for the garden. It took two trips to bring everything back and a lot of effort to get it into the back of the truck. The bucket was heaviest and took 4 people including myself to man-handle. Of course Willow came with us for the day and the farmer had forgotten to lock the gate into the next field so we went for a walk in long grass and she went beserk, running around like an idiot until she had to lie down, then she got in the brook and ran up and down it for about 20 minutes as well. I think she had a good day as well! We've got chicks everywhere today, I still have no idea what any of them are, but instead of taking snaps I decided to do some revamping of my website, now I feel a bit brain dead!

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

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

Thanks for visiting!

Zebras by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

At long last my zebra has got a nose so he can forage and sniff now to his heart's content! I've also started putting the second zebra in place on this piece of wildlife art and I am actually beginning to enjoy it. I do not have much art experience with horses so zebras are an even newer subject for me, but this one does look very well fed and in proportion at the moment so things are going well. This is my family portrait I am about to start, it will be in graphite and will be just heads and shoulders from this photo which was taken at a wedding. So work will begin shortly!

Also we are off to yet another tractor auction this morning, hence my early post, I wonder what rubbish we can collect today! I am insisting on taking Willow, especially after her escapade with a very large bag of dog treats on Thursday but thankfully the weather is cooler today plus there is a stream she can jump into if needed.

We've got chicks everywhere now, they're hatching left, right and centre, unfortunately as they were all mixed up we have no idea which breeds they are until they get a bit older, it's an annual event now to guess the breeds of the new babies, we always get them wrong. Luckily we do know they are not pheasants as they take longer to hatch so that is a bit of a help! When the weather brightens up later I hope to get some pics to show you all.

If you like my work please take the time to leave me a comment or become a follower (see bottom of page). If you would like to win a pet portrait of your dog, cat, horse or any other pet please see my new competition. It costs nothing to enter, all you require is internet access.

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

Thanks for visiting!

Zebras by Wildlife Artist Karie-Ann Cooper

My zebra painting now almost has one leg, I'm sure I'll be working on the nose area soon, otherwise this will look a very odd piece of wildlife art!!! Anyway I am beginning to like this a little more now as it does look a bit more real than at the start so that is one bit of good news!
And, just to update you on my day, we had an outing to Stockhill and East Harptree in Bristol and Mendips today and stopped at a hotel on the way for a safety meeting, up behind the hotel perched very precariously on a steep and rocky hill were these little goats! I have to say they are braver than I am, there were several coaches of school children abseiling and rock climbing the very same cliff but I think I'll leave it to the professionals myself...the goats!!!!
The was the chimney at East Harptree which was rebuilt in the 1970s but it had been in operation for 20 years in the 1800s. Typcial of birds, all the ravens and rooks had thought they could build nests in this chimney and the inside was building up with bits of twigs and nesting materials where all had tried and failed to block the top of it for their bird's eye view nest!!! The area was and still is very rich in ore and this chimney had tunnels attached to it, maybe five turning back on each other to transport the steam from the hearth where the ore was heated so that any metals in the steam would have chance to cool down before reaching the chimney and fall on the floor to be collected and reclaimed rather than being allowed to escape into the atmosphere.
Unfortunately due to our trip being so far away and travelling by coach I had to leave Willow at home, however she did manage to keep herself very busy indeed and ate a 1.5 kilo bag of doggie biscuits all to herself. She must be a bit clever as she reached them from a shelf on the wall in the kitchen without touching anything alse, what a naughty girl she is, and I'll bet she's got tummy ache!!!
Plus I have received the award above from Twincedars so I have to thank her very much indeed and I will ponder which 7 blogs I will pass this onto for a day and then update you asap.

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