Catch her while you can

Half our sitting room has been taken over by a wedding dress, designed and made for a friend by my eldest daughter (the one now in Dubai) and which is now being beaded by her sister, Alexandra. She hardly ever sits around long enough for me to draw her, so I took advantage of her relative stillness to do a quick sketch - ignoring the grumbles - I'm sure one day she'll be glad her mother insisted on immortalising her for posterity!
The dress - actually a coat to go over a simple silk slip - is looking beautiful. It will be travelling to Canada for the wedding. I am starting to get jittery that it will be all finished in time, but am - very slowly - learning to zip my lip, trust that my children are adults and know what they're doing and will in fact get the job done without my twittering on the sidelines!

Happy Valentine's Day

Here is a beaded wire rose (I think it's a rose) for you. They are sold by craftsmen here on the side of the road in some of our suburbs around this time of year - my beloved gave this one to me last Valentine's Day - I drew it in my sketch journal but I got bored and irritated rendering all those beads, I won't be doing that again in a hurry - real roses are much more fun to paint!

Some of the local art-and-craftworks have improved so much over recent years. There are highly original minds at work, though if one person comes up with a great seller, it soon proliferates all over town. There is a life-size beaded warthog that I rather fancy, but where would one keep it?