Gathering source material. Stackable closeup cats abound!

The camera has been acquired! Now I roam around the countryside shooting things. It's a bit like being the king of Spain, without all the hassle of going and troubling the elephants of Botswana. No no fair reader, I shoot them using only the power of light. Yeah, that's right, I have a telephoto lens. I need my own pics for painting source material, and the camera < A canon dslr EOS 1100D> is the ideal way to do it. Thank you government. The rest of the business start up gubbinz is being ordered tomorrow.
Ruth and I went out for a meander today, and with her spotting butterflies for me <She is MUCH better at it than me>,  I got some nice shots.

A meadow brown.

A red admiral

 I also trod in some cow poop, cut my elbow, got stung by nettles, cut my shin on some brambles, and nearly threw up at the smell of the place a sheep had recently met its end. I'm a low budget Ray Mears!  Ruth carried on, serene as a cloud, spotting butterflies and looking lovely with her new scarf that she knitted, and  I took photos of, for her "Ravelry". Something to do with knitting and its arcane arts.

It's called "cats paw" pattern. *nods knowledgeably*

 We were also watched by some small cows, who were clearly waiting for our backs to turn, so they could eat us.

cow monster watches you fall into nettles.

 Of course, the best way to get to know a new camera, as we all know, is to take a LOT of pictures of cats. We have a lot of cats, so this is a happy coincidence.  Mystery is normally hard to take pics of, as he is black, and all you see is black cat shape, and yellow menacing eyes, but i have persevered, and with the aid of Ruth waving a stick in the air, managed to get some good ones of him. He is not camera shy in the slightest, in fact we had to stop him from going and getting a feather boa to pose with, the shameless thing. He showed his displeasure, by shouting loudly for his agent. He was there for some time.

Paint me like one of your french girls.

The ennui of modern youth.

The Nosferatu remake was going well

I want to renegotiate my contract. Or kill you in the face!

Mim has taken to loudly peeping, and running off whirling her tail insanely, if she thinks I'm about to take a picture, So I have become cunning and sneaky. She caught a mouse the other night, and was feigning disinterest in it until Pie showed up. Then there was a sort of stand off, as Pie slunk about being fat, orange, and moochy, whilst Mim behaved like a minute air raid siren, and growled, whilst shouting "YUM YUM YUM" to indicate that the mouse was firmly hers.
Pie "You have a mouse my queen! A most handsome catch"
Mim "Miiiiine all miiiine" * cackles insanely*
Pie  " you do realise that I shall try and steal it, as soon as you blink, right?"
Mim "I will punch you so hard your whiskers will go into orbit" * picks up mouse*
Mouse "Hey! I'm still alive"
Mim "That's why I'm going to start with your feet"

*screams and crunching*

"Pie looks away, appalled*

Oh crap, oh crap oh crap.

Curses, foiled again.

Cat photography is fun.

Bet you thought I'd fallen into the brush water.

Well well well, so..... it would transpire that I'm still alive. I've been kind of caught up in the business planning and government wrangling stage of set up, which although tooth grindingly slow, fiddly, and mired in red tape, must be done. I have had help from Aled, one of our local business advisors, and the ever patient and cheery Joyce from want to work, in my corner, so that's been of great help. Sadly I've been to frazzled to actually paint anything. I'm getting my painty mojo back on though, and am going to paint a bunch of small mammals, mainly because they are fun, and cute, and people like pictures of fun cute things , with less than six legs.
I'm EVEN getting a workshop to work in, and am making sure there is no internetz attached to it, to resist temptation NOT to work, but do other things, like,......blog.....or play games on the net.
I've also been using the rather cool camera on my phone to take pictures of "natures tiny things" I find these more fascinating than natures big things, and as we don't get many bison in our garden, I can't take pics of big things. This will be remedied when I get a SLR in a few weeks time. Macro telephoto lenses will enable me to paparazzi all manner of small creature, and big ones too. Examples:

Oh, Look...one of Jedward. NO WAIT ITS  A WOODLOUSE! Mr WOODLOUSE! Mr WOODLOUSE! LOOK THIS WAY!

An aquilegia leaf and a drop of water. OR the hulk about to mash a diamond.

The cats have been curled up due to water expansion . They did try a dance routine, but Pie got a bit to jazz handy, and punched Mystery in the face. It all got a bit "black swan" when Mim turned up.

I regret NOTHING.

Mystery "Left rear paw, left rear paw, shake front paws"
Pie flails around.
Mystery "amateur"
Mim  scuttles in and beats them both up for waking her.

More at the weekend, with luck.