Robber Frog (complete)

See how this "Robber Frog" becomes a people mover. Whose are those children it is stealing? It is not really a robber, it is taking large numbers of the family on a trip to a better pool. How fantastic is that?

"Robber Frog" - stage 2, cured engraving.

"Robber Frog" - stage 3 partly "DNA stained".

This piece is part of my endangered creation series. There are something like 40% of amphibians on the critical list. Strangely a lot of these creatures are suffering death by fungus. They kind of go mouldy. How grim. How did this come about?

I think that this engraving has really worked out to give a terrific, interesting and lovely piece of art work (with much better colours than shown here via my mobile camera). You can see it completed (and framed) HERE (in better colour representation via my new photography set up).

Salamander (part 2 - complete)

I have finished my "Salamander - Death By Fungus" engraving.

"Salamander - Death By Fungus" - an engraving by Kevin Bramhill

You can see this lovely (framed) engraving HERE.

Spiny Starfish (part 4 - complete)

I have now completed and framed my Spiny Starfish.

Spiny Starfish 1 - an engraving by Kevin Bramhill

You can see them all framed (1) HERE, (2) HERE and (3) HERE. Take a look, they're great.

Salamander (part 1)

Today's creature on the road to oblivion is to the canine world, the sausage dog equivalent in the amphibian world, the humble salamander.

This engraving is a little larger that nearly all those I have done recently so there is room for a little more background detail. I have put my salamander where it might feel comfy, amongst some leaves.

Above, the cured engraving ready to DNA stain.

 

It all looks nice & simple at the moment. Just wait for the colour. It will remain simple, as it should.

Yangtze Sturgeon (part 2 - complete).

Do we mark the passing from life to extinction for the "Yangtze Sturgeon" in my finished engraving?

Checkout the bigger picture in the link below for the best view.

See the bigger picture (and see it framed) and read all about it HERE.

Chinese Paddlefish (part 3 - complete)

Check out my completed "Chinese Paddlefish" engraving which is now finished. Is it a fish? Is it an elephant? Is it a merman? Just what is this thing?

You can see a larger photo (and see it framed) and read all about it HERE.

Syr Darya Sturgeon (part 3 - complete)

The living (?) fossil that is in my "Syr Darya Sturgeon" is now complete.

This thumbnail of "Syr Darya Sturgeon" really won't give you the best idea so checkout the large version in the link below.

You can read all about it and see a larger (plus framed) version HERE.

Tree Lobster (part 2 - complete)

The extremely lucky "Tree Lobster" is now completed on my engraving.

You can read all about it, see a larger version and see it framed HERE.

Lost Plant (part 3 - complete)

My recent lovely "Lost Plant" engraving is complete.

"Lost Plant" engraving by Kevin Bramhill.

You can see a bigger photo of it (and see it framed) HERE.

Family Shoal (part 3 - complete)

My recent engraving, "Family Shoal" is now complete.

You can see a bigger picture of it (and see it framed) HERE.

20 Winks (part 3 - complete)

My "20 Winks" engraving is now complete and framed.

You can see the bigger picure HERE.

Visitors, school holidays & nasty letters from Mr. Tax.

We have had a few groups of visitors over this last week which is always nice. I have managed to finish off a couple of works and framed some others. Of course, when you have people visiting, it's always nice to go & do a few extra trips out so that rather than doing my own work I've been doing other things like a visit to the Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy. See it if you can. I wish I had the space to make things of such a scale.

We also had a couple of horrible letters from the tax man claiming that we owe insane piles of money. Even though our accountant assures me that this is a mistake it plays away on my mind so that I cannot concentrate on my work. The taxman still contradicts the accountant. I hate this scenario, it completely takes the nice edge off things. I think that someone needs to take more care to get things right because it just ends up costing everyone so much in more ways than just money with each little poorly judged demand. I think I would earn more money not working but instead I have to put up with this re-occurring nightmare.

I hope to have this sorted out quickly so that I can get on with some great new ideas.

Yangtze Sturgeon (part 1).

The "living fossil" that is the Chinese "Yangtze Sturgeon" is strictly protected. This does not seem to have stopped the decline of this 140 million year old line. In 2007, 14 young sturgeon were surveyed near the mouth of Yangtze compared with 600 the year before and that's after 10,000 fry had been release along with some more mature specimens.

"Yangtze Sturgeon" - stage 1.

An extremely ancient life about to go extinct?

Chinese Paddlefish (part 2)

As I am doing a sequence of 3 sturgeon and they are all "slate" on "copper" things will be similar to last time:

"Chinese Paddlefish" - stage 2.

 Next we add the slate background...

"Chinese Paddlefish" - stage 3.

Wait until you see the final stage. These are going to be great!

Chinese Paddlefish (part 1)

The Chinese Paddlefish is another fantastic looking creature. To me it resembles a cross between an elephant and a human or shark. Spectacular.

Not so spectacular is the abundance of this potentially huge fish. As we have improved our ability to extract every living creature from any volume of water so it seems that the largest members of any species will be picked off first. Back in about 1950 there was mention of a 7 metre paddle fish but the reported size of these things has probably diminished with time. They have been over fished.

The last confirmed sighting of a live paddlefish was in 2003. Over a staggeringly long 3 year search for the paddlefish from 2006 not a single one was found. In 2007 one was illegally caught, probably the last one to have actually been seen alive.

"Chinese Paddlefish" - stage 1.

Appearing, for just one last time, "Chinese Paddlefish". Exit stage left, soon to be followed by most of those in your restaurant or chip shop menu. Select your next dish with care.

Syr Darya Sturgeon (part 2)

Take a look, this is even better now that the paste has cured. I think it brings out that hint of (imagined) crocodile nicely!

"Syr Darya Sturgeon" - stage 2.

You can see the copper background and it is going to look great with a slate foreground so here we go.

"Syr Darya Sturgeon" - stage 3.

The mobile camera really struggles with the increase in dark so you will just have to wait for everything to be complete and I will show you the finished piece.

Syr Darya Sturgeon (part 1)

I have a more detailed and specific subject for my work today. I also want to have a border on the canvas so, after painting in a copper background I have masked out the edges. It will be interesting to see how removal of the mask works with the cured paste on it.

My subject today is the Syr Darya Sturgeon. It looks a bit like the missing link in an early stage of crocodile evolution (although I'm sure it isn't). Syr Darya is a fish that lives in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. As is the case with most of my current engraving subjects at the moment, the plight of Syr Darya puts it on the critically endangered list. This is a shame in all cases but just look at poor Syr Darya, I mean the living thing looks like a fossil already without us helping it to go extinct.

"Syr Darya Sturgeon" - stage 1.

See you again soon.

Family Shoal (part 2)

Everything went smoothly with my great little "Family Shoal" picture until I thought that I'd finished. Something was not right. Let's see how it pans out.

"Family Shoal" - stage 2.

 OK, so far, so good. For some reason I decide to do the background first. I then do the fish but some heavy blotting is needed as some of these lines are so fine. That means that the blotting takes some background with it too. I rework the background and touch things up and things are now as required. I have imagined a pink-ish sandstone and here it is. But I'm not happy, it does not look right with the DNA stain for my fish.

"Family Shoal"- end take 1.

I decide to use a lemon colour blended with a hint of purple to allow it to take up its setting comfortably.

"Family Shoal" - end take 2.

Now we are subject to my mobile phone camera here so it is frequently hard to know one colour from another. I will post a new image with better colour when I have my next camera session.

Family Shoal (part 1)

This will be the last of my mini engravings for the time being. Again, there is no research involved, it's just an interesting image I have in my mind that I am going to engrave.

"Family Shoal" - stage 1.

As you can see, I am imagining a small shoal of fish as a family, gripped forever in death at the point of some unknown demise. Did their oasis dry out? Were they poisoned by some toxic under-sea fumeral to wash up dead on a pre-historic shore? We will never know but here they are to forever tease your mind with questions.

"How?"

"Why?"

"Where?"

Lost Plant (part 2)

This very simple design has turned out very nicely.

"Lost Plant" - stage 2.

Above we have what looks like an engraving where things have sealed up again. The contrast on my mobile is not so hot & you cannot make out all the detail in the leaves yet (but it is there).

"Lost Plant" - stage 3.

Now I have used the metallic purple background for my rock colour again. In the above photo you can make out more of the detail that was lost in the previous mobile phone snap.

"Lost Plant" - stage 4.

Here we are, a bit further along the way to finishing. I seem to have it in for my mobile phone camera today. I do not think that the camera is able to cope with metallic purple & it is trying to re-arrange colours or something so, although you get the gist of things, it is not quite right.

You will have to wait for the completed picture when I hope that you will be able to appreciate the correct colours.

20 Winks (part 2)

I managed nearer my full quota of kip last night. That feels so much better.

"20 Winks" - stage 2.

 Above we have the cured engraving. Following this I have applied a metallic purple background. That is not an obvious rock colour choice but I think it fits in well with the state of mind I was in when I started this picture, surreal.

"20 Winks" - stage 3.

Above, I have added the "DNA stain" to each item.

"20 Winks" - stage 4.

Above, I have touched things in here & there. Almost done.

Spiny Starfish (part 3)

 Here is how the Spiny Starfish looked this morning:
 

"Spiny Starfish" - stage 2.

The spiny starfish seem to come in a whole host of different colours. Here they are following the first background layer, the foreground "DNA stain" and just after blotting.

"Spiny Starfish" - stage 3.

"Spiny Starfish" stage 4.

Here I have touched up the background following blotting and we're almost done.

Lost Plant (part 1)

There is a little experimenting in this with a finer engraving tip used.

"Lost Plant" - stage 1.

It will be interesting to see if the finer engraved parts open up as the paste cures. We will see tomorrow I hope.

20 Winks (part 1)

As you can guess from the title I felt like I was short of kip when I made this but I let my mind wander & carried on to see what happened. This is what has happened so far.

"20 Winks" stage 1.

We have a fish lost in evolution with a cartoon dead eye, an ammonite and a lost boot. Well, what did you expect?

Spiny Starfish (part 2)

Well it turned out that some ferrying of children I thought I would be needed for was no longer the case as the instructor forgot to put my daughter on the list & the much looked forward to trampolining class is now full. Daughter in tears :(

On the plus side, for me at least, I have managed to finish stage one of my 3rd spiny starfish.

"Spiny Starfish" #1, 2 and 3 - at stage 1.

#1 is on the left. #2 is in the middle and I have a thinner coating of moulding paste for a little variation. #3 is on the right and quite a few hours behind the others in curing (so the engraving still seems to merge).

See you tomorrow.

Spiny Starfish (part 1)

Today I am departing a little from my currently theme. I'm still doing a "DNA stain" engraving, actually a number of them. I think that it's nice to have an affordable price in mind and I like to do something for everyone. I plan to do 3 nice engravings. I am not delving into research to look for the story of a creature that brushed extinction & won or lost. I have simply picked a creature that I think looks interesting, the spiny starfish.

My start to the day was a little delayed as I am under the weather a bit (man flu!) & needed to catch the remaining 39 out of 40 winks that I seemed to miss last night. Consequently I did manage to almost finish another work but I only managed 2 out my 3 spiny starfish, stage one.

"Spiny Starfish #1" - stage one.

Tomorrow I hope that I can photograph the other work I finished & let you see that. I also hope to finish 2 of my 3 spiny starfish and start the third.

Tree Lobster (part 1)

Talk about lucky, this creature is extremely lucky to not be extinct.

The Lord Howe Island stick insect, (dryococelus australis) or "Tree Lobster" was thought to extinct in 1930 following the grounding of the S S Makambo in 1918. Like rats deserting a sinking ship the on board black rats do what rats do & deserted. Oh, but what could they eat?

The last tree lobster (which people had used for fishing bait) was seen in about 1920. Beyond this point our strange stick insect was thought to be extinct.

Now I say "strange" not just because this creature is a stick insect but because it exhibits an extremely rare behaviour for the insect world. The male & female form a bond. After this the male will follow the female around and she will effectively get to dictate the activities. Some might say "get use to it chaps".

14 miles South-East of Howe Island is the world's tallest sea stack (562 metres or 1844 feet high). In 1960 a group of climbers visited this place called "Ball's Pyramid". The climbers discovered a dead tree lobster. In following years more dead ones were found by other expeditions.

In 2001 a team went back and rediscovered a population of stick insects living under a single Melaleuca shrub. By population you imagine that now these creatures were saved. No, they found 20 to 30 of them.

"Tree Lobster" - stage 1.

I hope to tell you more tomorrow if I can keep this cold away (now I think there are some things we would like to go extinct).

Sooty Crayfish (part 2 - complete)

Well our dearly departed Sooty Crayfish now has a little place in the art world.

"Sooty Crayfish" stage 2 - dry & engraved.

Today I am going to turn things around a little. There are pros & cons to when you do the fore/background with these "DNA Stain" engravings.

Background wash on first today.

"Sooty Crayfish" stage 3 - background sandstone on.

In theory all we need to do now is add the "DNA stain" colour. It is a lot more fiddly & time consuming this way around but you can end up with better contrast, depending what you do.

You can view the completed "Sooty Crayfish" HERE.

Sooty Crayfish (part 1)

Some things we know only from fossils. Some things that we know of today may be found again as fossils in the future. Some things we knew within living memory will never be seen again.

A picture of the Sooty crayfish appeared in a 1959 journal. Sadly that creature which once lived around the San Francisco area seems to have lost the battle to survive introduced species. Sooty crayfish is extinct now so there is little chance it will become a fossil. We will never get to see one swimming about. I will never be able to see what one tastes like.

"Sooty Crayfish" stage 1

At least there will be one "Sooty Crayfish".

Let's see how it looks tomorrow.

Wedding Flowers (part 1)

You will note that my engravings have recently involved endangered things. This work is about weddings, something which for some folks is a thing of the past. Now I am married and for me being married is not about the legal bit of paper it is an extremely strong expression between 2 people showing how they feel about each other. It is also a great celebration of that expression to family & friends. 

"Wedding Flowers" stage 1.

 The design is fairly simple but I had to work fairly quickly to prevent the moulding paste getting a custard skin (which happens when the stuff starts to set & then can drag large parts around).


I now leave it to set overnight...

Each person may have their own reasons for deciding if they think that getting married is a thing of the past or not but I do think that a lot of people follow the crowd and dismiss things based on what they hear someone else say. A bit like saying you don't like a certain food even though you have never tried it.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 2.

You can see that I started in the top left. No particular reason for this other than I am right handed so it makes sense to minimise getting my cuff in the way.




In my life I feel that getting married was a great thing and a part of life that I would not wish anyone to have to miss out on.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 3.

Most of the foreground is filled in (as I tend to do with my "DNA stain" system). Now what about those two circles in the top right, above the thistle?




We are heading towards Valentine's Day and I normally buy my wife some flowers that we had at our wedding. Now although these are beautiful it is a shame that they do not last for long. I have decided to make my wife a picture for Valentine's Day. Yes, the Qatar Royal Family have the most expensive painting ever sold but they can not afford the price of the most expensive painting never sold. There is, of course no sum this piece can be purchased for. At least while it is in my posession any way.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 4.

Those could be moons / suns etc. but no, they're our wedding rings.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 5.

I normally go directly to the background layer but once it takes beyond a given time the earlier paint is already dry so to get a consistent finish I waited for the whole lot to be dry before the next stage.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 6.

I hope that my wife likes it.

I have completed a couple of things in the above photo. Firstly I applied the background wash and then blotted it, mostly removing it from the engraving. I then had to do more intricate blotting to remove some of the wash that needed it. Finally I have touched up some areas of both background and foreground.

This is not quite finished as I want to check how this looks when everything has had a day or so to dry.

Pulsemaster (NOT by me but J J Bramhill)

I have not done any physical art today (just thinking about some ideas and so on) so I will share a great snap I took of a picture completed a few days ago by the extremely talented young artist J J Bramhill.

Pulsemaster (Feb 2012) by Joe J Bramhill (age 10). Pigment ink on canvas.

It is such a great picture, well done Joe.

Gooty Sapphire (complete)

Now then, I bet quite a few of you like the thought of a wonderful sapphire. How about one that has occurred in nature to have the form of what looks like a fabulous creature?

This sapphire really exists.

Gooty Sapphire just after engraving.

 Those who have been following will notice that this is going to be in my "DNA stain" style. You can see that I have engraved the outline of my subject into the moulding paste. You can also see the dark coating under the moulding paste where I've engraved to the fullest extent. I want quite deep engraving for some parts of this to really emphasise the edges.

Once the moulding paste has cured things will open up a little more as you can see below.

Gooty Sapphire a day after engraving, paste cured.

Now the creature that is "Gooty Sapphire" reflects a metallic blue/purple light so I have used a mixture of metallic and conventional acrylic to get the effect that I want. As this is in the style of my "DNA stained" fossil images I have selected a rock colour (sandstone here) that is actually applied after the creature colour and is applied on top of it. Suitably quick blotting then brings out the original colour where planned.

Gooty Sapphire nearly finished.

You can see the completed "Gooty Sapphire" (and read more about it) HERE.