• The end of this video is not for the squeamish.

    When I built my Studio at the bottom of the garden I built a pond too, so I’d have some wildlife goings on to watch while I was daydreaming out of the window.

    Just two weeks ago, the frogs were thinking of laying frogspawn, but then it turned cold and they didn’t. Since then we have have had extreme cold temperatures and the pond froze. I think it must have frozen solid because all the fogs have been frozen to death. This has never happened before as we’ve not had such cold conditions before. The arctic wind was named “the Beast from the East. I’ve seen video of seashore creatures being frozen but never expected this as my frogs have always survived at the bottom of the pond before.

    So far I’ve collected and buried 47 frogs. You are warned that the end of the video shows the pond with frogs floating in it. Not for the squeamish

    I’ve had a lot of comments on this vlog. I had one suggestion that you can get a pond heater that keeps a hole open, but I feel the problem here was that all the water was frozen so there was nowhere for the frogs tp hide ponce they were trapped under the water.

  • https://vimeo.com/258251943

    We make a bit of fuss about snow here in Britain, because we don’t always get it and if we do it can be quite local. Because of that we don’t have the infrastructure to deal with it, so roads get blocked foolhardy types think they can beat nature and drive off into blizzards with low fuel, no food or blankets to keep them warm, then they complain that the emergency services aren’t doing enough to help them

    This snow has been different. usually it drops gently from the sky and covers everything. This time we have had a warm wet, storm coming up from Portugal meeting a biting wind from Siberia – that we have nicknamed the Beast from the East. This has resulted in the snow being blown about, allowing drifts to build up. the deepest we have is about 70cm. But Mrs rayner helped me dig my way to the studio this morning – I don’t think she wants me hanging around the house, getting under her feet!

  • I thought I would continue the pencil drawing theme and draw a heart in pencil, but this time I’m taking it slowly as my Patreon Patron, Jenny, says she has difficulty drawing even simple curves for a heart. Most of the time I’m just drawing in a pretty scribbly, loose, relaxed sort of way and pretty quickly too – I don’t want my audience to get bored! But the secret to getting those curves really smooth is to take your time, draw very gently so its easy to erase any mistakes along the way!

    This is drawn of quite “toothy” Seawhite of Brighton cartridge paper.