For those of you who haven't met him yet ...

Here's a picture of Pocket Bear.  It's actually quite unusual for him to be 
out and about like this, as he normally lives in a private pocket in my 
handbag.  This is actually quite useful, as mine is a not-at-all unusual black bag (not a binliner, I hasten to add!) and it's a quick way to check that I've picked up the right one.

However, life is full of surprises, as I found out when I did a Google Search on pocket bears.  Yes, please follow the link;  I won't go into my discoveries on here.  Suffice it to say that Pocket Bear is quite macho, once you get to know him, and he's certainly very hairy.

Keith Donnelly's last album is called 'Everybody wants to be a Bear' - details can be found here.  I do feel this piece of work has an extra dimension which I had not previously suspected!

Enjoy!

Oh, and thanks to Joanna for the really helpful instructions on how to create links directly from your posts - I won't do this retrospectively on the previous one, but just check out the links from this post!  (Here's hoping they work!)

I've been tagged - but I won't be the only one!

Well, I've been tagged, so apologies in advance to the hapless souls who I
will be tagging as part of this.  Everyone who plays the game has to write
down six weird things about themselves.  Then you have to pick six
victims and leave a comment on their blogs to let them KNOW that they've
been tagged, and to refer to the instructions on your blog as to what to do next.

So, all you taggees,  you've then got to write down six weird things about
yourself, so here are mine.

1)  I am double jointed, and flexible enough to bite my own toenails
(though I usually use a pair of nail clippers).

2)  I used to have a budgie called Nissan, because he was a blue bird.

3)  I have a pocket bear, called Pocket Bear, who lives in my handbag and
goes everywhere with me. (Actually I ought to put a picture of him up on here, though he is rather shy.  It will help him come out of himself).

4)  I know how to say 'My grandmother's ear trumpet has just been struck by lightning' in both French and German.

5)  My blog comes top of the list if you do a Google search on 'stripey worm in toilet'.  You can test this one for yourself if you don't believe.

6)  I used to have an obsession with honey fungus, which I am unfortunate
enough to have in my garden.  Determined to make something positive from this negative situation, I have done a painting entitled 'There is Honey Fungus in my Garden'.  It was exhibited in the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours' annual exhibition.

Re-reading these, they're not very weird at all.  Quite normal in fact.  
Oh well...

I'm not sure how you put down a name here so that it forms a link, but 
here's my list anyway:

Chris (of the Raven Madness blog) 
Lee, Valgalart and Baskerville Hound (from the 29,000 Floating Ducks blog)
Jennie (from Planet Jen)
Elizabeth (from Venta Live Journal)  but I haven't got a direct link to her blog!

Sockeater

 If you go to Ladysnail's Blog, you will find a Sock Man.  He's a bit lonely at the moment, so here is my picture of the Sockeater from one of Terry Pratchett's novels (to my shame, I can't recall which one - if any of you out there recognise the character, please let me know!).

At first I thought he might make the Sock Man a bit nervous, but then I realised that actually they're both made of socks, and for all I know, Sock Man probably eats them too.  Maybe Ladysnail could enlighten us!

So there we are - two mysteries in one post!

Latest Arrival at Puflet Palace!!!

Introducing Gwendoline, who is a very elegantly clad pigeon who arrived by pigeon post this morning.  This was a lovely gift from Debbie Greenaway, aka Ladysnail, whose blog can be reached from the link on the left  - do go and have a look to check out the rest of the flock!

Here come the Morris Dancers!

 Well, if you wanted to meet the bungee guy, how about these little fellers?  Blues and greens are very bright to compensate for the fact that 4-colour process will lose some of this, but the toilet roll looks as though it's been lying out in the sun for too long!

Exercise bikes and things.

I was listening to a radio broadcast this afternoon about working from home; one of the guys they interviewed was describing his work room, where the furnishings included an exercise bike. This struck me as his way of cycling to work.

Then I went to the gym and had a go on an exercise bike. They have a thing on which tells you how far you've gone; I've always found this quite amusing as it reminds me of that bit in Alice Through the Looking Glass where the Red Queen grabs Alice and they go racing away. The Queen tells Alice that it's sometimes necessary to run very fast just to stay in the same place.

But what particularly impressed me was another contraption where you can exercise your arm muscles via a cycling-type thingy - but it also gives an indication how far you've gone, in kilometres! I can't understand why, unless it's part of the training for people who go walking along on their hands! Very useful if you've got blisters on your feet, I suppose.

Coming out of the darkness

Well, here we are, with the bungee jumping and all the festive little characters living in colour!

Actually I'm going to have to play around with the colour adjustments a bit more, as these are much muddier than the original watercolour, which was nothing but sweetness and light.

This is despite the fact that I have only used process colours on this - yep, all the different hues are blends of process cyan, magenta, yellow and black. I once did a painting where I only used the pure colours, e.g. purples were made by overlaying red cross-hatching over blue cross-hatching. The painting is smaller than A4, but it took WEEKS. Haven't tried it since - had to be a reason why the technique's never caught on!

Illustration Friday - Buzz

This is based on my own back garden, and the only reason this really qualifies to answer the theme 'Buzz' is because of the beehive in the background.

In fact, the real life 'beehive' is a composter, and most of the buzzing that you hear in the summer comes from the critters on the pyracantha (not shown in the picture), which does get very loud at times.

But as far as I'm aware they don't make any honey in the composter, though there are some nice stripey worms in there.

I have, of course, produced an illustration to Aristophanes' play 'The Wasps', but I thought you might like to see something new.

Puflet Politics

Could somebody please explain to an unsophisticated small water bird why, in the recent execution of Saddam Hussein, it was deemed uncivilised to taunt him? While it was perfectly civilised to break his neck by hanging?

And why the News of the World describes him as a monster (yes, for sure, many thousand times over), but still deems it acceptable to gloat that they heard his neck snap?

Don't understand. Best get back to the sand eels ...

And while the morris dancers were hanging out at the back ...

Here's the final ruf (if that's not a contradiction in terms) for the front of the CD. You may notice certain similarities between this and the ruf I posted a little while back, but this one's more, well, crowded.

While I was drawing the new arrivals I was listening to a piece on Radio 4 about the latest bunch of immigrants to arrive on these shores.

It's funny the way this sometimes happens.

When I was adding the finishing touches to the infamous watercolour 'March past of the Kitchen Utensils', I was also listening to the book at bobotime on Radio 4, and the incidental music was, indeed, Vaughan Williams' 'March past of the Kitchen Utensils'.