My Winter Art Exhibition is now over and this week I've been wrapping up the original paintings that have been sold ready to go to their new owners. These include the above painting which I named 'Mallards and Lady' and the more summery image of hares in harebells below.
Of course it's nice to sell a painting, but I always feel a bit of a pang when they go.
These puffins and the seagull below are particular favourites.
Each picture brings back a memory. The swallows that nested in the storm lantern I hung in my back porch (see below). They nested very late in the season - I wonder if the chicks made it back to Africa safely?
I also sold my picture of blue-footed boobies which I painted after my return from the Galapagos Islands in May.
This painting won't go to it's new owner until January, as it is currently on exhibit at The Deep in Hull. The exhibition is to support the popular aquarium's efforts to raise funds for the Galapagos penguin, one of the rarest penguin species in the world.
My painting of these adorable penguins, pictured above, is the focus of the exhibit and featured on ITV's Calendar News this week.
It's been a very full year and the exhibitions have kept me busy, but now that the pressure is off I am beginning to look forward to some new wildlife watching projects during the run up to Christmas and beyond.
My first plan is to re-focus on the stoats that visit the garden. In the Autumn, one of the male stoats became territorial and chased his siblings away. He visited regularly and I was seeing him two or three times a day. But unfortunately he was run over on the road outside my gallery. I didn't see any stoats for two weeks after that, but I kept putting food out just in case. But then, one of the female siblings returned to the feeding station. She has now become a regular, and of course a female is better news for me. If she stays until next summer she may have stoat kitts in the garden. Watch this space....
