Our day will come...and we'll have everything!

Happy New Year's Eve one and all!

Hope everyone had a good Christmas! Mine was nice and quiet with lots of food, just the way I like it!

Haven't done a great deal since Christmas, just chilled, eaten and enjoyed being off work! Although I have today just finished my latest portrait which is of the late great Ms Amy Winehouse. I've wanted to do a portrait of Amy Winehouse for years as she had the most fascinating face (from an artistic point of view) but I never got round to doing it, and I didn't want to do one round the time she passed away as I didn't want to give the impression that that was the reason that I was doing it, because she had died.

Anyway, here she is....

"You don't owe nothing to me, but to walk away, I have no capacity"

She really was a stunning looking woman before her unfortunate lifestyle took hold (no disrespect meant, I still think se was beautiful right up til the end, but obviously there's only so much a body can take).

I'm really looking forward to doing my next portrait of the immense Mr Clive Barker! So watch this space!

Well now, everyone have a good New Year's Eve and stay safe!

Gem xxx

P.S. Happy New Year all! And I hope 2013 brings happiness to everyone! 

Merry Blogness Everyone!

Hello and happy Christmas Eve all!

Just a brief message today to wish everyone a Happy Christmas! Hope you all enjoy your day tomorrow and get everything you want! And of course enjoy the rest of your Christmas Eve....I'm just sitting watching Home Alone 2 with the husband, waiting for the Chinese Takeaway to open! 25 minutes and counting!

Merry Christmas All!
Love Gem xxx

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Merry Tuesday evening all!

We put our Christmas tree up on Saturday woohoo! So our house is looking very festive. It's a new tree with new decorations so we weren't sure how it would look buuuuut It actually looks pretty good!

Let the untangling commence!

All ready for Santa now! Christmas work night out on Saturday (80's night, fancy dress), then one more week at work and then I'm off for a week! :o) Bring it on!

Night all!

Gem xxx

A dog's not just for Christmas....

Evening all, and happy December!

Sitting here in my PJs and dressing gown with a hot water bottle and a pint of tea, just trying to stay warm! Definitely hit winter here in the small town of Durham. We've had snow, sleet, ice and rain in the past week so everyone's sliding about all over the place trying to keep upright!

Must admit though, as annoying as all the snow and ice is it does look pretty nice! (Pic below is of the town centre)

Pretty scenic right?

You may recall in an earlier blog I mentioned that I was doing a painting for my parents of their dog. Well after a loooong haaaaard journey I have finally finished! And It looks OK if I do say so myself! Poor little dog just had an operation on Wednesday to have a tumour removed, and he was castrated at the same time so he's a bit under the weather at the moment, but he'll be OK. Anyway here's my masterpiece....

Obviously it will look better when it'd actually been hung up on the wall as opposed to sitting on my bathroom radiator! Still, he's a gorgeous little dude isn't he? :)

I'm off now as me and the husband are putting our Christmas tree up in a bit, so I shall report back later on with some festive snaps of our living room!

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

Gem xxx

P.S. Cold! *shivers*

Been Baubling!

Morning folks!

I'm freezing! Just throwing that out there... It's getting cold round here now!

Anyway, between sitting curled up like a little ice cube I have in fact made a couple of sets of baubles (new designs...ooooooh!). The first set being a set of 8 robins:-

And the second set being 8 Christmas Puddings:-

Pretty happy with how they've turned out, particularly the xmas puddings. They're on ebay now so we shall see how they are received before I do any more.

I have also done another couple of different sets (more new designs...double oooooh!) but they aren't quite finished and won't be until Friday as the tools I need to complete them wont be in my possession til then. But hey, watch this space!

Not bad going I think considering I had a mad stomach bug at the beginning of the week, still, all's well now though!

Well since I have actually gone numb with the cold now I will sign off! Enjoy the rest of your weekend all!

Gem xxx

P.S. My husband brought us some Krispy Kreme donuts in yesterday.....awesome!

(his photography leaves something to be desired, but you get the gist....DONUTS!)

"Plum Island Animal Disease Research Centre"... Sounds charming

Evening all!

Been a while but here I am again! Been a busy few weeks! Anyway this is just a quick update, will do a proper blog tomorrow.

Having decided a while back to start doing portraits again I have just finished my third, which I personally really like. Anyway, here he is, the ever wonderful Sir Anthony Hopkins...

"I'm giving very serious thought...to eating your wife."

Not sure who I'm doing next, I've got a list but don't know who to pick....so watch this space!

Happy friday night all!

Gem xxx

Dry land is not a myth!

Afternoon all!
Haven't blogged for a while coz I've been busy busy busy! But I've got a bit of time to chill now so here we go!

A couple of weeks ago it started to rain. And it rained. And it rained. And it rained! And when I got to work at 7am-ish on Tuesday 25th of September I found that it had flooded! In fact there was a fair amount of flooding around Durham!

That on the left there is the river Wear and that on the right is supposed to be the road next the the river Wear.... And as you can see some poor sod left their car parked there. That car became pretty famous actually, it was on the news and everything! Unfortunately after work that day I had to walk home (due to the buses being delayed coz of road closures). So that was nice, a two mile hike up a steep hill in the pouring rain unable to use my umbrella coz of the 10 force gale that decided to pick up. Nice. Suffice to say I took the following day off work as a days holiday....


I did use my days holiday wisely though as I completed a rather random order of baubles for someone...

Westie Bauble!

Cow Bauble!

Fish Bauble!

Dog (white&tan) Bauble!

Tabby Cat Bauble!

Dog (grey) Bauble!

All packed and ready to go!

I also decided a few weeks ago that I should start doing more portraits again. I haven't really done any for a long time and quite frankly it's something that I'm good at doing so just seems like a waste that it's not getting done! So once I'd finished Helen's baubles I started work on my first portrait (of many) which is a portrait of Bane, played by Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises. Very interesting to do, but my word that mask took a while! Anyhoo just finished it today....

It's A3, done in graphite and ink. Hope you all like it!

That's me done for today, gonna chill with a cup of tea!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend all!
Gem xxx


P.S. Went out for a meal last friday with my work mates as two of our team were leaving, and had a lasagne with mashed potato in. Mashed potato??? In a lasagne??? What's all that about???

P.P.S. First episode of Red Dwarf X was awesome, and Chris Barrie/Rimmer can still make me come over all unnecessary....STILL.....after 20 odd years!