Update and a new painting video

Well then,I haven't finished the magpie yet, but in true Veronica form, I've started a new painting, and I have a painting video for you!Last time I went to our market town, I bought some treats for the birds.I love these half coconuts filled with suet and bird seed.Fantastic for our garden birds like our garden robin and the various blue tit which come around, and also the squirrels. They love to hang upside down and snack on the feeder. I think they're funny.I have to show you something interesting.Last time I walked thru the meadow, I found a corner with a bit of rubble and a piece of metal, which is being used for a song thrush anvil! How exciting. The song thrush picks up snails and flies them over to this spot and cracks them open on the rubble. Do you see all those shells around here? I love it. They pick out a spot and then continue to use it.So I decided to paint a thrush. I looked around, but I couldn't see the song thrush. I did see a mistle thrush though, so decided to paint one.Do you see my filming contraption? LOL it's my iPhone on the tripod, secured by a little bit of blu-tack and my pony tail elastic, propped up with a paintbrush. Yeah, technology and me...Anyway, it works! :DAnd, as soon as I get the micro T away from my feathers...And get him to stop stealing and killing my brushes, I'll get the painting video uploaded. :DHere it is:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKzhPMTCptk

We wish you a calm and lovely Christmas Eve

Well, I hope that the card sending, gift making, grocery buying Christmas preparations are behind you now and you have a chance to relax with your family.Maybe you'll go for a walk around a lake like we did, maybe you'll visit your friends, be with your family, or just crash in front of the fire until your evening carol service or midnight mass.What every you're up to tonight, our wish for you is a warm, lovely and calm evening with love and happiness in your hearts. XO

Lunch at the palace next door

"Oh La Di Dah" I said to Robbie, "let's go to the palace for lunch!"So we jumped into the TVR and roared off down the road for the last day Blenheim is open this year.Don't be impressed guys. Season passes are pretty cheap and the palace is only about 12 miles down the road, and so coming to Blenheim is like going to a local park around here.But Blenheim is a beautiful park actually, and although the palace is closed now for the season, the grounds and coffee shop are still open.So thru the gates and into the courtyard. I was a little disappointing we weren't allowed into the palace grounds and gardens. Next year.For some reason, the cafe was kiddie central and so we found a table in the orangerie, which was completely screaming child free.And after lunch, Robbie relaxed while I did a little tour of the palace gift shop.Oh my goodness guys, everywhere I look there's something I want to buy!The gift shop is kitted out with all sorts of vintage inspired and traditional English things.Here's the stuff I wanted:The kitchen goods are branded with a brilliant "Under the Stairs" label and hint at maid this and butler that. It's brilliant. And also very good quality; like these Irish linen tea towels, small brushes and traditional wooden clothes pegs.How about these tin sugar shakers?I really wanted these beautiful measuring spoons and spoon rest. It really took a lot of effort not to buy them, but then the £17 and £10 price tags helped me decide not to!These hot water/hot chocolate jugs!This quill and various coloured inks set! Alas £40! That's a whopping $80!So I resisted all these beautiful but totally unnecessary goodies, and, as the sun was setting (at 1:30pm!!!) and lunch was over, we walked thru the courtyard...And thru the park, and hooned back home.I'll show you what I did buy though:A bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for Christmas, a bottle of Churchill's special port, and some of the butler's mulling syrup for the next glazed ham or pork roast. :D

Ah those crazy last couple of days before Christmas

And everything is pretty well organised and fine :DI know the last couple days before Christmas can be somewhat of a nightmare, but the only nightmare round here is the wind!This morning I woke up at 4am from a nightmare where I was in the middle of WWIII. Then I realised that I left my window open for some fresh air and it was the wind howling so loudly. So I closed the door and went back to sleep. In the morning on my FB, my friend Jill had the same though "when will this wind die down?"I popped into town yesterday for a couple forgotten things and came across the owl sanctuary canvassing for donations, and who can resist when they have a couple resident owls with them.The one on the left is, of course, a barn owl, and the one on the right is a little owl. I know I've painted little owls before, but it's something seeing one so up close and personal. It's a tiny little thing. And look at those amazing eyes! :DToday we finally baked our Christmas cake. I know! Each year we strive for a much earlier Christmas cake baking, but somehow never get around to it. It's all good though, we love our Christmas cakes and aren't too into that whole must let it rest and soak up as much brandy/cognac/whisky as possible thing.Today I also got around to painting something on the sawn-off bottom of our Christmas tree. I love doing that, and I love any reason to get out my oil paints.This year I painted a little robin, all puffed out against the cold.And then, because I pilfered a few more ends at the Christmas barn and because I had a little more time before supper, I started a red squirrel. Not quite finished but happily on the way.I hope your days aren't too stressed and hope everything's fairly organised in your world.

Hello from Sunday night

Hello from Sunday night everyone.I hope you had a lovely weekend. Ours took some twists and turns, but hey, the sun came out for the first time all month! :DToday we decided last minute to visit Robert's aunt Mary-Louise.Mary-Louise is Robert's mother's sister, and she had some photos of R's late mom he was keen to see.So we got into the TVR! And hooned across the Oxfordshire countryside.We got to Mary-Louise's beautiful home just in time for tea.If you're like me, you'd never think of coming to someone's house empty handed, and so I made a lovely Christmasy, hand-tied green bouquet for Mary-Louise.I used willow and all sorts of greens from the garden, and well as some winter blooming virburnum, which smells of honey.I wove tiny willow wreaths and tied them on with a length of white ribbon.And also tied on golden snowflakes.I did have to take the whole bouquet outside though and gently persuade a couple lady bugs back into the bushes.Mary-Louise loved the green bouquet and we spent a couple lovely hours with her, touring the house, pouring over photographs, paintings and portraits and listening to wonderful family stories, and then on the way back home, we stopped at our local pub for supper.

Armageddon skies and painting the magpie part 2

I managed to mangle a second video edition of painting the magpie!Maybe my contraption of 5 books and a branch for iPhone propping up isn't ideal, and maybe I need to think harder about moving photos and videos off the memory before the memory fills up and the phone stops videoing, but hey, there's a kitten. :DBefore I get to the video I wanted to show you this:The Oxfordshire sunset and the Armageddon skies.Robbie came in to tell me there's a beautiful sunset about to happen, and so I walked out to the meadow and stood there for a while.I stood there until way past sunset and a fat pheasant landed in the willow above me and squaked his head off at another one across the meadow.But here is the second instalment of the magpie. It's a bit long. I hope you like it and I don't blame you one bit for skipping thru it. :Dhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCNAUfXH8pI

Visiting the Christmas tree barn in Appleton

With this little kitten we weren't sure about a Christmas tree but then decided to get one after all, and for a Christmas tree, we like to go to the Christmas barn in Appleton.Appleton is one of my favourite villages. It's on a rise, the other side of the Thames from us, and it has a charming little old world sort of feeling.I think that the Christmas barn is a regular working farm for the rest of the year, but at Christmas time, it's turned it into a Christmas market.I love the trees in England. The varieties are so different from the noble spruce I favour in Vancouver. Here we usually get the traditional Norway spruce.I like to get a tree as tall as possible, and so head to the tall tree section.And then I look at the price...and have to double it for a Canadian price comparison...yikes...and decide that maybe we don't have to get the tallest one after all!While Robert and the man helping us got ready to cut off the bottom few inches from our chosen tree, I had a little peek at the front of the barn and the Christmas market.So many pretty, sparkly things. I can't wait to get our tree home and decorate it.Unfortunately, on the way home we got stuck in a typical English country traffic jam, but happily, the slow driver pulled over as soon as she could and let us pass. :D

Market Monday

I went into town to get a sim card for my British phone and to do some shopping today.Usually shopping happens on Wednesdays, because Wednesdays tend to be pretty quiet and there are literally millions of people here who always decide to shop at the same time.But I had to go, and as expected, the market town was busy and made even busier for this special pop up Christmas market in the town square.Lucky me, I had to walk thru it to get to my bank and so had a good look.In the centre was a stall where a woman was grilling bratwursts. They smelled great!A bit further along was a stall selling all sorts of antipasto goodies.Right beside them was a bread baker with his wares. Don't you love the flour-baked message on that fabulous artisan bread?Next door was a knitter with crazy woollen and hand-knit sweaters. I just loved all of them.And last, I met a jeweller who was making these beautiful pendants. He takes a piece of nature; a feather, leaf or acorn, and he copper plates it, and then he silver plates it, so at the heart is the actual bit of nature. How lovely is that?A last (longing) look at the crispy duck lunches and off I go to get my shopping and business done.

Hello from Sunday night, video edition

Hello from Sunday night guys. I made you a little "watch me paint" video. It's 10 minutes long and so I hope it's not too boring.Last night we had a lovely open fire to warm the house.It's a bit of a challenge to rein in this kitten of ours. Here he's sitting on the coal barrel on top of a couple logs to stop him getting into the coal......and you can see his little cat brain working over-time trying to plot a way to get onto the other side of the fire grate where he knows he's not allowed.But open fires are very welcome here these days.It's not that cold, but it's so manky and humid that everything feels damp.I was at my art desk, painting a little magpie on a piece of Mendelssohn, and the shmarko had a real dilemma because he couldn't decide whether he wanted to kill the paintbrush in my hand or sneak over to my feather collection while I'm too busy to notice.I found this music book at a charity shop a year or so ago, and have loved the old pages, which have conveniently lost much of the binding and so are very easy to take apart.It seems like this was a well loved book. I suppose it used to belong to Doris Parsons, who wrote her name on the front page in this beautiful calligraphy, and then she slit four little lines in the next page to hold this photo of the composer. I've never come across such a personalised book before.I'm so glad that I do what I do, especially when I find a much loved book like this one, and am able to give some most of its pages a second life.I've been watching a few YouTube videos lately and following a couple of vloggers, and I was wondering if maybe I could make a video here or there. I know I have a YouTube channel but have never tried to make art videos. Well then what do we say?That's right, how hard can it be?https://youtu.be/RqKJzyV9-tU*note to self: turn the radio off when narrating the next video! :D

Winter colours for a willow wreath

If you can believe it, I slept till 11am this morning. Hooray for jet lag!And by the time I woke up, I only had about an hour with Robbie till he had to leave for the rest of the day.So alone for the day, I walked out into the meadow. You might not think it, but the colours are amazing right now. Some winter flowers are blooming and the willow branches have taken on that bare winter, skeletal beauty which glows among all the brown and grey.Oh my gosh, the vivid yellows and reds. I love it.I walked out into the meadow, past the skeletons of the teasel,past the fireweed,right up to the willow.I asked the willow and felt peace, so I took three super long branches. One for me, one for Robbie and one for the shmarko,and I brought the branches home. On the way I gathered thinner and more pliable willow branches from some of the smaller trees.At home, I took the branches up to my studio and closed Theo out, (mainly because he wants to kill anything moving and I'm not sure willow isn't toxic), and I twisted and bent and wove those branches into a wreath.I put the wreath on my dressing table because there is some strong light there, so I could photograph it and show you these beautiful branch colours.And here it is in my studio...with my typical art table mess :D (all better to be inspired by!)I love this willow wreath. Maybe I'll make another for the front door.And, because there's no way you're getting away without a kitten photo, here's the shmarko Theo. He's a bit calmer today. Hopefully the novelty of having me as his new play-buddy is wearing off.