Portmeirion Secret Garden Porcelain

I'd been gazing at this porcelain in John Lewis for months,
so my parents very kindly gave me a set for Christmas!


Eight photos under the cut...

Advent Calendar: Behind the Scenes Special!

I thought it would be fun to show you how one of these drawings comes together. Remember that if you click on the images, you can see them at 700x510.

I start by sketching out the scene lightly in pencil (darkened here to make it show up).

Then I draw over the pencil with a fineliner -- this is about half-done.
Here I've finished drawing the ink lines and rubbed out the pencil marks.

Next I fill in the first layer of coloured pencil, the main blocks of colour.

The shading and details are done with more pressure, so the colours start to darken.

Finally, I edit the image in Photoshop, cropping the image, making the colours richer and tweaking some fiddly details.

Spot the Difference! In this picture, a mistake with the Tyrannosaurus' leg needed erasing; the Torosaurus' markings were cut and pasted from the 18/12/09 drawing of him so they'd be identical; a bit of brown leg that encroached on the yellow glow was snipped out; and I added some shading to the haybale.

The development would probably be much easier to see if I posted an animated .gif, but I don't know how to make those, so I hope this post explains it well enough.

Christmas 2009

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 24th December

Merry Christmas from all the dinosaurs!

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 23rd December

Who better to bring the presents than Tyrannosaurus Rex and his fleet-footed Utahraptors?

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 22nd December

Here is your Iguanodon Christmas angel!

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 21st December

These Leaellynasaura have come bearing gifts.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 20th December

Amargasaurus is bringing you a wreath!

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 19th December

Yangchuanosaurus is marking up the Radio Times. Will there be any good films on?

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 18th December

Torosaurus is festooned with jolly jingle bells.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 17th December

Ammonite baubles!

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 16th December

Muttaburrasaurus is assembling a snowsaur.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 15th December

These Coelophyses are out carol-singing.

Cat Pictures

Where's Bella?

Fossil cat.
Fishing.

Goodnight.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 14th December

These Tapejaras are getting the paperchains ready.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 13th December

Styxosaurus and Eustreptospondylus are after your mince pies!

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 12th December

Leptoceratops is baking you some festive biscuits.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 11th December

Meanwhile, Little Diplodocus is spinning a dreidel. 

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 10th December

Little Stegosaurus is visiting his granddad.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 9th December

These two Deinonychus are having a cracking time.

Winter Sky

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 8th December

You've caught Corythosaurus nibbling the Christmas tree!

Captcha

I just wanted to post a video of a kitten...

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 7th December

Ornitholestes is enjoying some mulled wine.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 6th December

Ankylosaurus has spotted some mistletoe.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 5th December

Allosaurus is getting your stocking ready...

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 4th December

Ornithocheirus is all lit up and twinkly.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 3rd December

Brachiosaurus likes this Christmas candle.

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 2nd December

Triceratops will help you to eat the pudding...

Prehistoric Advent Calendar: 1st December

Plateosaurus has brought you a gift!

Language

Oh no!

After the Rain

Screencap

I paused The Thick of It while I left the room for a moment, and when I came back, I realised the paused image reminded me of a painting!

Artemisia Gentileschi, 'Autoritratto in veste di Pittura' (1638/9)

All right, this is a reference for a very specialised sort of geek.

Stained Glass Biscuits

These didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped, but they were only a first attempt. They're a basic biscuit recipe, and you cut out holes inside each biscuit. Into the holes, you sprinkle crumbled up boiled sweets, and they melt to look like glass. They're not very tasty, but they do make pretty tree decorations.

My mum (who's better at this sort of thing than me, hers are much more attractive) puts a hefty helping of salt in the recipe to make the biscuits last better. A batch had just come out of the oven when her neighbour came over, and the neighbour said, 'Mind if I try one?' and popped it in her mouth before my mum could say, 'They're not for eating!'

My main problem was finding the right sized cookie cutters -- hours and hours of futile searching round the shops -- and then I couldn't find any boiled sweets that weren't diamond-hard. I bought Fox's glacier fruits and could barely even break them with a hammer. But there comes a point with this sort of thing at which you've invested so much effort in getting together all the equipment and ingredients that you can't possibly give up, otherwise your whole day will've been entirely wasted. So, stained glass biscuits: achieved (sort of).

Drawing: Iguanodon

I was having a slow afternoon at work, so I doodled this dinosaur at my desk and posted a photo of it on Twitter. It proved to be quite popular: lots of people re-tweeted it and I got about 35 new followers in an hour. I was really surprised! So here's the original photo and a higher resolution version.