Friday 12 August 2011

Singing for me supper

Well, no I haven't vanished off of the face of the earth since my last posting way back in the mists of time, but due to a rather longer than planned painting sabbatical and a slight career change you can now find me working away elsewhere at a little place called BackCountry Strings 

Here I'm cheerfully beavering away at building custom musical instruments, fiddles, banjos, lap guitars and the like. We're all still happily living in Middlewood and the work is still artistic(I hope!) so if you like pop over and have a look. Will  be throwing in a painting or two every now and then plus the usual observations on cornish life so hopefully there will be something of interest,
 cheers for now




Friday 13 November 2009

Return of the Grizzly


Some of you may remember this guy from earlier posts. Grizzly bear fishing for salmon on an Alaskan river. I've had this canvas sitting at home for a few months now and have finally got round to finishing him off (I think). As I don't have any new exhibitions coming up for the rest of the year I've decided to take a punt and put the chap up for online auction. EEK! Don't do this very often but occasionally have made some good sales when I've least expected it, so what the heck. If he doesn't sell I may take him back to the easel and do some more work in readiness for the new year's round of exhibtions.

Anyhow, if you would like to check out the auction you can see it here - The Fisherman - Grizzly Bear



Sunday 8 November 2009

A Not So Common Lizard


Discovered this little chap hiding under the draught excluder in the front room the other night - a very cold and sleepy common lizard
We've had a number of others of his ilk visit us in the wee small hours over the years, several of these have unfortunately turned up dead and once I even stepped on a recently deceased individual whilst I was heading for the fridge in the dark, but this is the first one we've managed to capture on camera. Admittedly the photo is pretty terrible, but it was difficult to focus the camera whilst holding the little guy at the same time! Anyway, you get the idea.
After the photocall he started to warm up a little so I took him outside to the safety of a small woodpile away from predators and small, determined dogs.

Wednesday 30 September 2009

Interesting...(or perhaps not)

Talking as I was the other post about new identities and such like, thought some of you may be interested in a new blog which has recently appeared online. It's only just started so there's not much info up there yet. Also it's slightly off-topic as it's not directly related to wildlife art or wildlife-anything - in fact it's more of a travelogue-come community noticeboard really -but, hey, the author's a bit odd and it might raise a few laughs out there.

You can check it out at The Shanty Islander

Now back to my paintbrushes (new pics coming soon)...

Monday 28 September 2009

Dogfight over East Moor

About a mile north of Hawkstor on Bodmin Moor is an area called East Moor. This is one of my favourite parts of the moor, littered with neolithic remains, ruined roundhouses and standing stones, including a fantastic stone circle called the Nine Stones, where during wetter months(i.e. most of the year in Cornwall) the stones actually stand in the middle of a pool of peat-stained water. Anyway, Sunday morning was beautiful and clear, so we trekked out over a beautiful domed hill (which the ordanance survey has imaginatively entitled "Ridge"). Avoiding a wandering gang of belligerent bullocks, we climbed the hill and reached the top to be greeted by the fantastic sight above us of an aerial battle between seven buzzards and five ravens. For maybe ten minutes they whirled about in the blue sky, tumbling rolling, clashing together then wheeling away. The buzzards flashed their talons,but the ravens, despite being outnumbered, definitely had the best of it - attacking and harassing the birds of prey again and again, all the time yelling their insults and generally driving the buzzards mad. Finally, probably deciding they couldn't stand any more hooliganism, the buzzards spiralled up higher on the warm air rising from the hill and eventually dispersed towards the distant bulk of Kilmar Tor. As for the Ravens, well they had a good laugh and flew off too. Typical corvids, all they'd wanted was a good scrap.

Friday 25 September 2009

I have a new identity


Well, I've bit the proverbial bullet and changed the name of the blog. The old Joel Merriner Wildlife Art Blog had become a bit too industrial and utilitarian for my liking, and not really reflective of the mixed bag of content included here lately. Anyhoo, hope you like the new moniker, keep checking back more changes to come...

Thursday 24 September 2009

Cornwall Wildlife Trust Art Exhibition


My painting "The Buzzard Rock" has such been selected for inclusion in Cornwall Wildlife Trust's Inspired and Wild touring art exhibition to take place this autumn at various venues across Cornwall

To quote from the CWT website -

"Cornwall Wildlife Trust is holding an exciting Art Exhibition this autumn, which will help to raise vital funds for the Trust as well as showcasing the wealth of local artistic talent from around the county. Entitled ‘Inspired and Wild: Celebrating Cornwall’s Art and Wildlife’, the exhibition will tour from 1st October until the end of January. The tour promises to be a fantastic way to raise awareness of the Trust’s work, and aims to display different interpretations of the wildlife and habitats it protects and conserves in Cornwall."

All work will be for sale with 40% of profits going to help fund the Trust's different conservation projects. Venues will include the The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Geevor Tin Mine, and the Cornish Studies Library as well as the CWT's own headquarters in Allet near Truro.

You can read more about the exhibition and the CWT's work at -