Bored with watching telly over Christmas I wanted to paint. 
I looked through some of my countryside photos but could not find any I liked so I just made this one up as I went along. Half way through I thought It looked so boring, then I had the idea to add the birds. 
I feel like a fledgling myself, I am spreading my wings and gaining my confidence with Acrylics who knows maybe 2018 will be the year I start to fly.

I think I am running out of different paints to try for this year. I started with Watercolours (too pale & awkward for large areas of colour) went on to Pastels (too messy & cannot get enough detail) then Oil Paints (too thick & take too long to dry). So I decided to I might as well try some of the acrylics I had lying around, half of them were dried up but I had enough to paint this cat beneath the spring blossom. I really enjoyed using them. I just hope Santa brings me some new Acrylics & some paint brushes too, I keep forgetting I have to wash them out before the paint drys.

While driving around lately I keep seeing a road sign for Train To Christmas Town Weardale Railway a polar express type experience. It reminded me of a college project I did back in 1986. I had to choose an object, illustrate it, then make a three dimensional model, take it apart & make full colour plans & instructions on how to make it. Me & my Mam where on for weeks with bits of cardboard making the model so drawing the train was the easy bit. I was always proud of my drawing but I had never been able to make use of it.
Inspired by the road sign I dug it out of the attic & I got to work on Photoshop. I used the background of my "Snow Angels" picture & the foreground of my "Robin & Ivy" picture & added a sprinkle of snow. This train is only 31 years late, but better late than never!
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