2016 is here!

Time to do my daily painting. I have to say here and now i’m not much of a painter but really want to improve, so here goes! I’ve signed up for the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge as run by Leslie Saeta. As inspiration I have also been reading the book Daily Painting – Paint Small and Often to Become a More Creative, Productive and Successful Artist by Carol Marine. I’m enjoying the book a lot, haven’t quite finished it yet.

I’ve decided that the first week will be devoted to experimental painting, I haven’t decided yet on themes for the following weeks.

Today’s painting is acrylic paint on 6″ x 6″ card and is really a kind of a loose sketch of something i’m working on that will be on a 20″ x 16″ canvas and in mixed media. It was me feeling my way into the work and trying different things. The final painting will no doubt be quite different but it was very useful to do a small version.

I was up early as always on the 1st January to spend the daylight hours birding, working on the year list. The weather was pretty grim, cold and windy but it has to be done. Ended the day on 53 species, the highlights being two Golden Eagles and three Snow Buntings.

Bit of a crummy phone pic – the waves looked way more impressive than this!

The crofter was busy on the beach collecting seaweed, it will be left in a big pile to rot then will be spread onto the crofter’s plot on the machair to fertilise his crops. This time of year there is always massive piles of seaweed after the winter storms – i’ve seen it 10 or more feet deep.