Essentials Cafe

Due to Wardy getting a shot of me on holiday, and Kirk recognising me, it has been necessary to hide in the hills for a while. I have found a warm cave, but my pack mule didn't make the climb, he got within a few yards of the cave entrance and just gave up the ghost. I feel tremendous guilt now, because two tons of Guinness was too much for him to carry, but I was expecting to be here for at least a week. Needless to say the eagles have dealt with the carcass, and as they are now well fed I might be able to get some nice shots up here without being eaten. It has taken me all day to get the cave habitable, if you have ever been near bat droppings you would understand - sketch followed by detailed watercolour.

Well Tolouse...It seems that Wardy must have gone into hiding too....we haven't heard from him for a few days now. 

For an Aussie chick like me could you please explain what a Shillelagh is?  I don't understand some of these UK words!!!

Great creative painting, I'm impressed.

Shillelagh is an Irish word for a type of club or fighting stick. Their weapon of choice would have been a cane made from oak, blackthorn, ash or holly.
Known by many names, including bata in Gaelic - which means, fighting stick - the original cane gets its name from the Shillelagh Forest in County Wicklow. The forest was once famous for its massive stands of fine oaks.

I like this. Was this hand drawn or from a photo with the hat and stick drawn in?

I'm glad you liked it Simon, I used a photo for the background which was manipulated and changed to suit my composition, then cut and pasted the hat and the shillelagh, and placed them exactly where I wanted them and at the right size, then ran the whole job in E4. Nothing was hand drawn, except for little touches here and there on the finished autopaint version. It was just a case of me making an artwork out of three seperate photos, and just having fun .