Thursday, 3 July 2025

Tiny, Whimsical Sketches for World Watercolour Month 2025

The image is divided into four squares. In each square is a watercolour line and wash image, in a palette of pinky orange, red, yellow and indigo blue. The sketches are of, clockwise from top left, a stylised radiant sun for the "radient2 prompt, a cup of espresso for the "espresso " prompt, a cupcake overloaded with rippling cream nad a cherry for 2ripple2, and faded jeans over a washing line against a sunny yellow stone wall for "fade".
Sketches for the start of "World 
Watercolour Month 2025"
in pen and Derwent Inktense
watercolours.

Hello there

Hope all's well and thriving in your corner of the world. And speaking of "world", it now being July (How? Already?!) it's World Watercolour Month, 2025.

What is "World Watercolour Month?

The idea behind World Watercolour Month is that it's a low-pressure challenge, involving optional daily prompts (usually meaning that people need to draw something random, and interestingly-outside-normal-comfort-zones).

This year, I decided at least to start off with the prompts, but to ease the pressure on myself in what is nearly-always a hyper-busy month in this house, by doing tiny two inch square sketches, and batching my uploads somewhat. This also has the happy result that innocent onlookers  don't get deluged with disparate images day after day.

But if you'd like to know more about World Watercolour Month,  as well as seeing *lots* more art from some great people, all the details are here.

That's all from here for now-and thank you, as ever, for reading down this far.

More soon.
___________________________

Like this post? Tap or click here to subscribe to BoundingSquirrel

Thursday, 26 June 2025

New Digital Pastel Painting: In the Poppy Meadow...

Image sows a digital pastel painting of a poppy meadow, that's also studded with daisies and other wild flowers,.
"In the Poppy Meadow"

Hello there, and hope that all is well and thriving with you.

This week, I've been celebrating. Specifically, there was delight to be had in:

1. All the wildflowers that  are making their way back to to so many spaces here in the UK. Not just in meadows, or even field margins and by the roadside. 

No, they seem to be appearing in ever space, including even more by our local reservoir...

Photo of a wild red poppy, daisy and grasses
(Photo by Jim Fernbank)

2. Finally capturing all of the feeling of that beauty in the way, and at the size, I've really wanted to for years. Hence the digital pastel painting at the top of this post. Why all new things seem to start with poppies for me, I'm not sure. But they do. Perhaps it's their beauty, and my love of them. And/or their being beloved and familiar, when trying something otherwise new). Anyway...

If you're into this kind of thing, here's a quick time-lapse of the different stages of the process I went through in digitally painting "In the Poppy Meadow " (which took about two hours in real time).





And  all of this led (via a route with which I won't bore you) to the realisation that:

3. I can (finally, and thanks for your patience) add paintings and designs to...jigsaws! Here's what "In the Poppy Meadow" looks like as a jigsaw puzzle (which can be of various sizes):

The image is a picture of my In the poppy meadow floral landscape digital pastel painting, converted into a jigsaw.
"In the Poppy Meadow" Jigsaw Puzzle".
Click or tap here to find out more.


That's all for now. But hope this post was a fun boost one way or another-and thanks *so* much for being here, and taking the time to read this.

More soon.

Thursday, 19 June 2025

Happy Sun Illustration and Animated Gif Free Download

Hello there

Just in time for the summer solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, here's a shining sun illustration that you're welcome to download and use if you'd like.


Image is a hand drawn smiling, happy sun in bright shades of orange and yellow.
Click, right-click or tap here to download this 
"Happy Sun" Illustration.



This bright and fun sun will add light and warmth to any social media post, newsletter or website. Use to represent summer holidays, the summer solstice, or any time a post needs cheering up. 

 It's free to you as a subscriber or visitor to BoundingSquirrel.Com, to download for personal and small business use. 

Credit and links to Clare Walker at BoundingSquirrel.Com are always appreciated, but never required. Just please don't sell it separately (my full "angel policy" terms are here if you need them).


Get this a moving gif image if you prefer



If you'd prefer the moving version of this image, then please click or tap  here to see and download it.

Most of all, I hope this is as fun and uplifting for you as it was for me to create. Thanks so much, as ever, for being here (and for reading down this far).

Update after posting...

I wasn't going to do this, but something told me to pop this illustration onto some items at Redbubble...And they looked like this, for example...

The same Happy sun image from the rest of the post is shown here on a throw willow with an azurite blue background.
Happy Sun Throw Pillow


And now I really am going. But there will be...