The Making of Mouse

I’ve been painting a mouse in the world of my watercolour art for about 6 months now.

This could be one of those unanswered questions about where he came from that I may never have an answer.

My family and I were planning a trip to the sun this past February to escape the gloomy grey of our winter weather. The dates of our holiday happened to coincide with both Valentines Day  and my wedding anniversary.  Playing around one day with my paints,  this little guy popped onto the page.

 

He has continued to show up as an artful expression ever since, and now I can’t imagine my life without him.

He helped me count down the days to my departure on a recent trip to France where I was lucky enough to attend a painting and sketching retreat.

 

I knew it might be a bit tricky and messy to be painting while I was in planes and on subways and it occurred to me that mymouse might need to come off the pages and into the 3D world as my travelling companion.  This is how it all began.

I have some old x-ray films in my studio left over from days gone by when I made small jointed mohair teddy bears. I used a piece to create his template and when I held it up to the sun I  couldn’t help but notice it looked like he had real organs !

 

Slowly piece by piece he came together using my old doll making patterns fashioning them into the shape of a mouse.

 

 

 

He had to be the colour grey of course .

And then he had to dry , of course .

And what to wear when travelling became a topic of conversation.

                  He was ready for his first adventure finally .  

He made new friends along the way.                Lost luggage and had to have a new sweater made.

 

And he loved the painting in France .

                Like any traveller he came home with a camera full of photos.

He’ll share them here when ‘we’ can get organized , but at least now he has been introduced.

Next post will be on finding a name for him.  And yes he finally has a name.