Panda Bear Legend

Illustration Friday's topic is Tales and Legends.
So my illustration is Moma Bear telling Baby Bear the Chinese legend of how the Panda acquired their beautiful colouring.


The legends begins with the panda as a totally white bear. One day a little girl happened to run across a white panda and a leopard fighting. Trying to save the defenseless panda she charged the leopard with a large bamboo shoot, striking him over and over again. The leopard was not hurt by the bamboo and turned on the little girl instead. This act of bravery saved the panda’s life but the little girl lost hers in the struggle.

All the white pandas held a funeral in honor of the brave little girl and wore black armbands as a sign of mourning. The black dye of the armbands, moistened by many tears from the pandas, began to run. When the pandas wiped their eyes, the armband left black marks. When the pandas consoled each other by hugging, the dye left black spots on their backs. When they covered their ears to block out the sound of crying, the black dye colored their ears.

Remarkable Birds

Takahe, an endangered flightless bird found only in New Zealand.


Kagu, Flightless bird with an extraordinary voice, can sound like a cross between a rooster and a puppy!


Black-winged Stilt, have the longest legs relative to their body-length of all the worlds birds.
So there, I wasn't exaggerating!

Just a few sketches I did in ink and watercolour from a beautiful bird book,
Collins Remarkable Birds by Stephen Moss, that a friend gave me.
Thank you J. xxxx

zebra graphics

Zippidee-do-da

Tippytoes the intrepid hunter!

Tippytoes loves her bit of string, if I tie something to the end of it she looses interest rapidly!
It's sort of like kids playing with the box the toy came in, kind of :)

Beautiful bag by Poppy Treffry

I got a present this Christmas of this gorgeous bag.
I love it so much, I had to share it with bloggers everywhere!
It is made by Poppy Treffry whose site can be seen here
It's well worth a visit, she has cushions, tea cozies, egg cozies! as well as bags and other stuff.
If you click on my pictures you'll be able to see the amazing detail of her machine embroidery.
Can you do that with an ordinary sewing machine, I wonder.
I must find out and give it a go.

Spiderman Prima Donna

It was plain to see, Spiderman was quite the drama queen!




Spiderman has always been one of my favourite Super Heros, thanks to my younger brother who was a Spiderman fanatic and collected his comic book, sorry, graphic novel, every week.
The funny thing is though, my brother is actually arachnophobic!
So anyway when I saw this Spiderman action figure in a charity shop I couldn't resist.
I brought him home and we've become great pals, even though he's the Prima Donna drama queen.
Simply lives in the lime light!

Very versatile booties

It's my sisters birthday today and I've spent the last couple of days making these Eskimo slipper booties for her.
She loves them, which is just as well 'cause I'm quite bereft without them tonight!
They really did become like two characters, the odd couple!
The difficulty was getting them to look like a pair.
My sister asked me to make them for her, ages ago, out of an old sheepskin jacket she had. Thank heavens there's still some of the winter left as they are super fantastically warm!
Comfy cosy toesies.
Must make a pair for myself.

Monopoly

I found this really old Monopoly game in a charity shop yesterday.
It must be at least thirty years old and it still had all it's pieces!
I'd fun taking photos of the little sports car.
Is that in the newer edition?
I don't actually remember it from playing as a kid.
What I do remember is the squabbling from the start as to who got to be what piece, I loved the hat and of course nobody wanted the iron or the old boot!
And the bickering continued all through the game until somebody stormed off in high dudgeon.
In fact I doubt very much if we ever actually managed to play the game to the end.
As soon as I was old enough to understand the game it bored me, same with chess, the minute I realised it wasn't all about taking as many of your opponents pieces as quickly as possible I just couldn't be bothered!
Strategy was never my strong point! It stresses me out!

New friends

These three darlings were welcomed with open arms by their new families over Christmas. Although one little boy was very put out when somebody called his new friend a dolly, he was having none of it, boys don't have dollies for goodness sake!!
Anyway I had great fun making them and I hope the kids have as much fun playing with them!