I joined the Guild Society of Artists this week, a new branch of The Fine Art Trade Guild, and will be working towards qualifying as an Associate (AGSA) Member.
Breast Cancer Awareness Prints
A courageous young woman at a moment of reflection and contemplation, wearing a pink ribbon, sitting under the peace and calm of a cherry blossom tree. Hand embellished gold border with cherry blossom detail.
Raised gold leaf gilding
Kuru Toga Mechanicals

Testing out some “new to me” (..old news to others) mechanical pencils. These self sharpen due to the rotating action of the lead once pressed to the paper. So in theory wear down evenly as it rotates, forming a point.

Not that impressed with the sharpening so far but they do stay sharper than other mechanicals, I was probably just expecting too much. Think I’ll still be using a touch of glasspaper to get a fine point when I need it for miniature work. Using 0.5mm’s but will order a 0.3mm too, seems harder to source the smaller leads, hence I got the 0.5’s. Bringing me on to…
The Leads
IMPRESSIVE! They are tough, all due to nano diamonds (which I thought was a bit of a gimmick tbh) …not had a lead snap AT ALL yet, even when I accidentally dropped one a metre on to hard tile. Plus they come in really (Ahem) cute little cases.

Off to order some more grades ..and a few more pencils.
UPDATE: A YEAR of use later and the sharpening is working nicely, ordered a 3B …and so far NO snapped leads!
Studio Furnishing
New Year + Trip to Ikea = NEW STUDIO DESK & STORAGE!
Finally have somewhere to properly store all my sheets of paper and this desk has loads of working space I love it! I like the adjustable working angle and storage for all my tins of resin and silicone on the tressels.
Mouse Hole Development
Mouse door / Mouse hole (not sure!) skirting board decoration. Sculpting starts today!
Planning on doing a bit of a misadventure mouse thing here …Hmmm… Mouse Door / Mouse Hole / Misadventure Mouse??
