Poppy Box Complete: Base

Cottington's Poppies 3 (AKA Poppy Box, on account of its deep-edged stretcher) is finally finished! I had to wait for the sides to be touch-dry before I could turn it around and paint the base, which is what you can see in the photograph above.

On the Slopes of Ladle Hill

Ladle Hill is within walking distance of my house (around 5 miles, I think), but, but the time I get there it's almost time to come home and there is certainly not enough time to paint.

Cotton Bag: Poppies

Who'd have thought it, eh? Poppies on a cotton bag... it just had to be done. No hill, no sky, but still it turned out a little more complex than my initial idea. That's the trouble with including backgrounds, y'see.

• Click here to find out more about my decorated Cotton Bags. 

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Even more poppies:
<< Poppy Box in progress
<<< Main Poppy Box Post
<<<< Mini Poppies
<<<<< Stormy Poppies

Poppy Box in detail

I couldn't resist sharing this one with you; there's Stormy Poppies (Cottington's Poppies 1) in the background! And you can see where I've painted (part of) the edge of the latest one, too.

Here are a few more close-ups and edge views:

Poppy Box in progress

I didn't share any in-progress shots with you on the "very-nearly-finished post" - so here they are:

Cottington's Poppy Box (Cottington's Poppies 3)

Please excuse me for posting an unfinished work.

Pretty Pictures

... can be found by clicking on the Gallery tab at the top of the screen.

Some recent pictures:

Sluice on the Kennet and Avon

Time for another old painting?

Photographing Paintings

My methods of photographing paintings are a bit ad hoc.

To be honest, I'd appreciate any advice that anyone might be able to offer.

Cotton Bag: Driverwolf *Special*

This is a special bag, made as a raffle prize for the Driverwolf Quiz Night at Kingsclere Primary School in September. Driverwolf are a British Formula 1 Sidecar racing team (as in motorbike and sidecar). The guy at the back - he's the passenger, although his role is anything but static - is a friend. Which is why I did this bag.

                                                                                       
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• Click here to find out more about my decorated Cotton Bags. 

Cotton Bags: Two more Lego Minifigures

Two Lego figures for the petrolheads; here are the Biker, and the Champion Racing Car Driver, rendered on cotton bags.

Another motor-related bag is right ahead of you...

Cotton Bag: Eager Companions

This is a "special", done on request for a friend, who has a friend, who dotes on her pets. Well, soon she will have her pets on a tote...

Cottington's Poppies 2 - mini version

This was meant to be an oil painting done with a knife on a 30 x 30" box canvas. But the big box canvas hasn't arrived, so I made a miniature version instead. In acrylic, with a brush.

Tree on the Ramparts at Burrough Hill

This is a small painting, completed in one evening (at the expense of the washing up). I managed to get the bulk of the colour work done in daylight - the luxury of long summer evenings! - while the tree and the trig point were done under artificial light.

Cotton Bag: Red Admiral

I feel that I've been neglecting the "real" butterflies. Here's one familiar to many - the Red Admiral. This large, distinctive butterfly is a summer migrant to Britain; its favourite food is nettles.
More information can be found here.

• Click here to find out more about my decorated Cotton Bags.

Cotton Bags: 2 Lego Minifigures

Apparently there was a tennis thingummybob on today, but I think my tennis player is the wrong gender. The fellow in blue - well, he was Brick Bond in a former painting. I suppose he still is; he's just changed his waistcoat. And maybe he's watching the tennis. The lady has been painted but this was done straight from the figure.

• Click here to find out more about my decorated Cotton Bags. 

Cotton Bags: About

I dread to think quite how many cotton bags I have decorated over the last few weeks. It's been fun - more akin to craft than art at times, perhaps, but that doesn't really matter. Anyway, as Oscar Wilde once inferred, if it's useful, it can't be art.

• Jump to Washing Instructions.
• Jump to Pricing.

Cotton Bag: Yin Yang Dragons 2

And here is the second of my attempts to twist these flexible fellows into the Taoist symbol for light and dark. I wasn't quite satisfied with the first one; while it did work, it had too much space in it. This time, the dragons (a different pair) are trying really hard - you can see that they are both having to hold their tails in place!

Cotton Bag: Yin Yang Dragons

I had thought that I had done with the dragons for a while (they're great fun to draw and noodling with the Celtic-style knotwork and borders was fun, too, but after a while you just need to do something else...) but then I had the idea of using the dragons' vaguely comma-like shapes to make a yin-yang symbol. Or something rather like it.

Cotton Bag: Dragon Knot 2

Here's another tangled dragon, a development on the dragon knot design. I thought it was going to be the last - for now - but I had a new idea for the dragons.

Watch this space blog...

• Click here to find out more about my decorated Cotton Bags. 

Three Cotton Bags: Five Dragons

Double trouble! These two dragons are rather tangled up in the single strand border... maybe they ate the other strand(s)?

Cotton Bag: Dragon Knot

It looks happy enough, but this dragon seems to have got a bit tied up in the border - maybe it's pretending to be part of the border. Whether it's lying in wait or hiding from someone (or something), I wouldn't like to say.

Cotton Bag: Red and black dragon, entwined in Celtic border

Is this one more gothicky?