FAST AND SLOW, LARGE AND SMALL

I've been painting animals recently, elephants in brusho, which you have seen before, and here is a small snail, his name is Sebastian. I painted him because I came across a poetry book I won for being first in poetry when I was at my first school.  I saw this poem called The Snail's Dream by Oliver Herford.

A snail who had a way, it seems,
Of dreaming very curious dreams,
Once dreamed he was - you'll never guess!
The Lighting Limited Express!

And I thought, ah ha, never painted a snail before, so here he is.  I won't paint one again, actually I can't stand them, but actually their shell is quite interesting.  I used wax to try and get the sense of texture and a shiney, slimey body.

And next is Sharon Whitley's Monthly Challenge a Tiger.  This one was a difficult one, so kept putting it off and painted it on the very last day of March.  The photograph is quite stunning and is by Gary Jones, Wildlife photographer.  And I thank him for sharing this photograph with us.  If you look at her blog you will see a link to their website, where you can see her wonderful birds and animal paintings  and  Gary's wonderful photographs. Called Portraits of Nature

And today I am off, with a good friend of mine. to learn to paint like Turner, at the Lady Lever Gallery in Port Sunlight.  Now there's a lovely village.