Friday 31 March 2006

Illustration Friday - Spring!

Well - spring's definitely here - it was absolutely chucking it down with rain today. But spring rain, rather than the winter stuff that creeps into your bones.

Anyway, here's a nice cheerful springtime picture showing the birds marking out their territories, and shouting abuse at each other. Nice abuse, though!


There are blue tits using my sparrow terrace, which I wouldn't mind, but:

a) Sparrow terraces cost about three times the amount that tit boxes do.
b) We carefully constructed a tit box, using specifications supplied by the RSPB, and situated it in the sort of spot that blue tits are supposed to go for. Evidently somebody forgot to tell them!

I've got a beautiful corkscrew hazel, which is covered in catkins at the moment. If it's not raining again tomorrow, I'll try and take a photo of it for this blog. You'll be impressed, but not if the lens of the camera is covered in a pretty pattern of raindrops ... we'll have to see.

Have a nice weekend everybody!

CAS

21 comments:

Rrramone said...

Nice illustration. :-)

Susan Schwake said...

very beautiful use of color. i like it!

maria antunes said...

wow... lovely colors. Lovely illo. Great work. I love it! :-)

Lee said...

wow, cathy...that's just incredible...definately makes me feel the warm weather coming...okay it's already warmish here so I can't complain ;) love it!

Teri C said...

I love it! The colors are so soft and spring-like!

Baskerville Hound said...

Cathy & Puflet,
I always love your images and this is certainly no exception- I love the subtle yet vibrant colours and all the intersecting lines. Always so interesting and detailed.
well done & glad to hear your winter is starting to ease up! [we are just about to start ours- at least its not a cold UK winter though i suppose!]

Amy Zaleski said...

Gorgeous work! I love the movement and the colors!

Lori Witzel said...

Darn pretty! Love the patterning.

Lou said...

Very nice layout and colors. Love it!

Heartful said...

This is beautiful, love the rich detail and layered colour. Did you use coloured pencils?

Tulipland said...

very beautiful.

Joanna said...

They are such un bright colours and lovely little birds I can feel how spring like they feel. Hope you made it to the exhibition.

TaraLarsenChang said...

Corkscrew hazels are one of my favorite trees - and they are so dramatic this time of year. I took some pictures of the ones outside of where I teach and posted them a couple of days ago on *my* blog. :-)

Good luck with your birds!

Tara

Cathy said...

Thanks for all your lovely comments, folks!

Yes, I did make it to the RI on Sunday. I think this is one of the most inspirational exhibitions - so many of the paintings are just plain QUIRKY!

Cathy xxx

Joanna said...

Just worked out how dumb i am, I went to the wrong exhibition, it was interesting but yours sounds much more exciting. How very disapointing, don't suppose I will get there before it closes, will hope to see it next year.

Aravis said...

Wonderful! Beautiful use of color.

Cathy said...

Hi Joanna! Sorry you got to the wrong place - which exhibition did you see, after all that?

Cathy

Joanna said...

I went to the royal sociaties exhition at bankside. There were a few really good pieces, but some was not so good. As I said I would of rather gone to your exhibition. Parking was easy at bankside though. I feel abit of a muppet.

Cathy said...

It's been years since I tried getting stuff into the Royal Watercolour Society - never had any luck with them.

They don't seem to go for just plain silly stuff the way the other guys do!

Cathy

TXArtcGal said...

WOW! This is fantastic!! LOVE the colors!!! BEAUTIFUL!!

Alina Chau said...

YOur illustrations are beautiful!! THis piece is stunning!