COLOUR ME HAPPY FOR 2014

COLOUR ME HAPPY FOR 2014
Watercolour - Jez

This is my first entry to the Three Muses challenge, where the topic is COLOUR ME HAPPY, and these are the colours that make me happy - yellow and orange.  There is some grey in there because we have to accept that into each life some rain must fall, and without a little sadness we wouldn't know what happiness is.  But it's happiness that keeps the wheels of life turning.  Painted in watercolour, and the border was added on Photoshop.

I couldn't resist trying a couple of digital colour changes - interesting, but I much prefer the vibrant yellow and orange, those are my happy colours.

It's also my first entry to Moo Mania where the challenge is BIRDS, and drawing or painting birds is something I really enjoy.  Here is my sketchbook page of Flamingos:

I don't know if you've ever spent time trying to draw flamingos from life.  If not you've missed a treat.  Flamingos have an attention span of about 3 seconds, which I swear they reduce to 1.8 seconds as soon as they see a sketchbook and pencil.

They're in constant movement, twisting, bending, preening, feeding, squabbling and generally having a go at any other flamingo who dares to come near.  At Martin Mere there are two separate flocks of flamingos, one group is Chilean flamingos, and I don't think I've ever noticed where the others are from.

I'm fascinated by their knobbly legs, flexible curving necks, and 'mud-pie' nests - and in the spring their fluffy grey chicks on their long skinny legs.  I just wish I could capture a good image of them, but it's a question of scribbling down at least part of a posture and hoping they might just take the same position once or twice more, so it's a matter of jumping from one part-sketch to another.

Apologies for the dark photograph, because although we've had some gorgeous sunny days and blue skies over Christmas and New Year it's not been quite good enough for a decent photo.  We've been so lucky over the holiday period with our weather in this area of North West England.  Over great areas of Britain, coast and country, there have been huge winds, gales and rainfall and people have been flooded more than once, and without power for days on end, even on Christmas Day because so many power lines have been down.  On this morning's farming programme, which we listen to in bed at 5.45 am (very early risers!), the farmers said the fields are so waterlogged that the rain which was forecast again for today and another few days  has nowhere to go - it can't drain off the fields because the rivers have already overflowed and just can't take any more water.

So my thoughts are with those whose Christmas, New Year, lives and homes have been so terribly affected, and if anyone reading this has suffered from those problems I do hope things start to improve for you a little soon and will be thinking particularly of you.

Linking to Moo Mania, Three Muses, Paint Party Friday and Manon's Paper Saturdays