Skomer Puffin and North Wales Open

Skomer Puffin

©Sharon Whitley the Rambling Artist

Not been painting as much recently but did this puffin the other night, it's from one of Gary's photos and my facebook challenge this month is to paint him - so had to have a go myself - there have been some brilliant paintings entered, pop over and take a look if you're on facebook, the link is on the side bar!  

We're off to Skomer Island again on Saturday as the puffin chicks have now hatched and there will be loads of opportunities to get photos of puffins carrying a humungous number of fish in their mouths - amazing how they do that!!!  Tomorrow we'll be visiting the Dyfi Osprey Project and will finally hopefully get to see Monty for real!  And then on Sunday I'll be visiting Clwyd Theatr Cymru where two of my black headed gull paintings have been selected for the North Wales Open Art Exhibition - this runs from 22 June to 30 August - I'm chuffed to bits!!

So what are you up to at the weekend?  

Wonderful Wales

A couple of weekends ago we took a 'glamping' trip to Snowdonia - we've camped before in a small 2 man tent with not a lot of room, no electric hook up - which was all great fun but have decided to upgrade a bit, get a much bigger tent, so we can stand up!, electric hook up so we now have heating, a fridge and a kettle - wow what a difference!  We had quite a relaxing weekend, without our usual big mountain walks as I'm lacking in energy quite a bit at the mo - especially after the tougher than tough mountain marathon we did the weekend before!! Anyone who has iron deficiency anaemia will understand where I'm coming from! - anyway, the weather was glorious - we visited the Ugly House which I don't think is ugly at all, where I was thrilled to meet the lovely Huw Jenkins of Natur Cymru - see last post.

our one walk was up Yr Eifl on the Llyn Peninsula - just glorious

We visited the Glaslyn Osprey project but didn't see any ospreys unfortunately - I did get my paints out though while we were there and did a quick sketch of the view over to the Snowdon Horseshoe... the other painting below that is of the view from our glampy tent looking towards Moel Elio.

I'm delighted to say that the painting of Ceulan did get sold and has raised over £100 for the Dyfi Osprey Project which I'm absolutely thrilled about - they do fantastic work there and I'm looking forward to visit in a couple of weeks - the painting should be arriving in his new London home today. Here he is again...

On Sunday we travelled down to Skomer Island for the day and as well as the expected puffins we were thrilled to see short eared owls - more about Skomer in my next post..... have a wonderful day!

Ceulan

Ceulan

© Sharon Whitley

Ceulan is a very special osprey - he was the only surviving chick from last year's nest at Dyfi, survived the migration to Africa only to die after becoming entangled in a fisherman's net in December.  I've painted him in the hope of selling him to raise funds for the Dyfi Osprey Project as I did with the painting of his father Monty.  

And before I go - I had a lovely surprise a few days ago - I had entered this puffin painting into the Natur Cymru Wildlife Art challenge and found that I'd been given 2nd prize in the competition - the painting will be their next edition's magazine cover!  Result! and I won a prize too!

© Sharon Whitley the Rambling Artist

Catch of the Day

the other winner and other runners up can be seen on the Natur Cymru blog

.. and talking of puffins ....we're off to Skomer Island on Sunday - weather looks great - it's a looonng drive though but should be well worth it, can't wait ..... so more puffin paintings will surely be on the agenda!  

Now I'm off to browse your blogs as I've not had a look for a while - been away camping for a few days - will post some piccies on the next post... bye for now.........!

Dogs, birds and a marathon!

I've recently done another pet portrait for a family friend of Gary's - the owners have the painting and I've heard that they love it so all's good!  I enjoyed painting this one as it reminded me very much of my old dog Honey who was a real character.  My mum found some old photos of her which I'll try to use to make a painting - I did try painting her back then when I must have been around 15 and still have the painting now - I took a photo so you can see - you see I've never been one for detail - always a slapdash painter! This was done in gouache which is what we used in school for painting.

Honey

painted in my teenage years

And as always I've been painting birds - this was last week's challenge on Paint Colorful Birds for Fun - a bird I would love to see in real life, the fork tailed woodnymph hummingbird - quite a mouthful - the name, not the bird!

This weekend Gary and I are taking part in the Excalibur Marathon which was cancelled because of heavy snow back in March but rescheduled for this weekend - it's in aid of Claire House Children's Hospice.  26.2 miles over the Clwydian range and around 5500 ft of ascent - it's going to be a killer!  Wish me luck cos I'm going to need it eeeeeeekkkkk!

Nuthatches, Greylags and ridges

Nigel the Nuthatch (from a photo by Pixelbloke

© Sharon Whitley the Rambling Artist

I really enjoyed painting the nuthatches from a couple of posts ago and so had a bash at another in a different style this time from David Smith's photo who we were doing a tribute to back in April (read more about this here).  One of the his photos that really stood out for me was one of a flock of greylags flying over some marshland and I couldn't resist having a go at them as well....I'm having this one framed to try out in an exhibition this summer - whether it will be accepted remains to be seen but you never know til you try!

Greylags in flight

© Sharon Whitley the Rambling Artist

and last week's walk was on one of my favourite ridges - the beautiful Nantlle Ridge in Snowdonia - just love it there and although it started off cloudy, windy and cold it turned into a beautiful afternoon with amazing views.............

   I love this ridge leading up to Mynydd Drws y Coed 

 if you look carefully you can see where a section of the ridge has fallen away - so you have to be careful on this bit - luckily it wasn't too windy!

self timers mean we do get the occasional photo of the two of us together!

Birds, birds and more birds

Anyone who's a regular reader of this blog will know that I love birds, both watching them, learning about them and painting them - and I always enjoy finding out about 'new' birds - ones I've not heard of before which is one of the reasons I enjoy taking part in the 'Paint Colorful Birds for Fun' weekly challenge on facebook.  Last week's challenge was of a bird I did know and one of my favourites - the lilac breasted roller - I always try and pay him a visit when Gary and I go to Chester Zoo so I was very happy when he was 'the bird to paint' last week

I had a new visitor to the garden a couple of weeks ago as well - a male blackcap - so of course I had to honour him by doing a painting!  I was in a splashy mood for this one!.......

and here's the photo of him in my garden.................

Mr sparrowhawk has been back as well - what a specimen he is too - Gary was there this time and had his camera handy...............

and finally, remember the last post with Monty the Osprey - anyone watching the shenanigans on the nest at the Dyfi Osprey Project is sure to be riveted - it's like an Osprey Soap Opera there with Monty trying to get himself a female after his usual partner failed to arrive back to the nest this year (assumed dead sadly).  The Dyfi Osprey Project  rely heavily on donations so when I had a message from someone asking if I would sell the painting of Monty I donated the proceeds to the project - I'll soon be painting another of Monty and his new mate which will also be sold in aid of the project (if anyone wants it that is!)

I've been browsing through your wondeful blogs this morning - I don't always have time to leave comments - especially when there's the captcha thing to work out!  It drives me nutty that thing!  But I do visit and take inspiration from your postings whether they be beautiful works of art, photography or a good anecdote.  Thank you all of you out there in blogland for sharing your world!

love Sharon

Nuthatches and Monty!

Last week's challenge on Paint Colorful Birds for fun, was to paint a nuthatch, one of my favourite native birds.  I used two of Gary's photos for the challenge, one in the nuthatch's classic pose (above) and the second one I just liked the pose.

I've also been enjoying watching the Dyfi Osprey Project live streaming of Monty trying to get himself a female and thought I'd pay a little tribute to him by doing a quick watercolour, he's certainly a handsome dude!