View from the Discovery Cafe

Staedtler Pigment Liner and W&N Watercolours 

in Stillman & Birn Beta Sketchbook, 3.3" x 5.5" (x2)

Yep! I love this sketchbook!

Red Tulip

Staedtler Pigment Liners and W&N Watercolours 

in Stillman & Birn Beta Sketchbook, 3.3" x 5.5"

What can I say? I love this sketchbook!

Sketch of Wardown

Pen and Ink and Watercolour Sketch of Wardown

in Handmade Sketchbook

A friend and I went on our own little sketchcrawl and did a few sketches before having a cuppa in the tea rooms. After she left to collect her children, I gave myself a little artist's date by sketching and painting this.

It's hard to believe I've been unable to post in Leslie Saeta's '30-in-30 Challenge' before now when I've made it a high point in my calendar in previous years. I'll have to make a determined effort for Inktober!

278. Collage for '30 in 30' Challenge - September 2016

Collage for '30 in 30' Challenge,

September 2016

Well done everyone who took part! Some managed to do 30 paintings; some of us only did a few - I managed 17 but well done one and all as it may be 17 pieces of artwork that may not have happened otherwise. My thanks to everyone who has supported me along the way and, ultimately, huge thanks to Leslie Saeta for putting on another great challenge - thank you!!!

(End of Leslie Saeta's '30 in 30' September 2016 Challenge.)

273. Road Back from the Supermarket

Pilot G-Tec and C4 pen,  Hybrid Gel Grip pen and Winsor & Newton

watercolours in re-cased Seawhite sketchbook, 7.5" x 7.5" (x2)

Can't get enough of this super view. My cousin's house is only one minute on from that bend on the horizon and my late parents' house is a further two minutes. Bliss!

I get my new glasses today - yippee!!

(Day 24 of Leslie Saeta's '30 in 30'.)

267. Supermarket View from Upstairs

Winsor & Newton watercolours and Pilot G-Tec C4 pen and
Hybrid Gel grip pen in re-cased Seawhite sketchbook, 7.5" x7.5" (x2)

If you go upstairs at the supermarket, where there are more shops and businesses, this is the view that meets you! It really has to be seen to be appreciated; I haven't done it much justice here. Have a great weekend everyone!

I wasn't totally happy with the previous image (now below) and could not think what it was that bothered me until I had to fit it onto Leslie's '30 in 30' page then I saw it! I much prefer the cropped version above; what do you think? (NB. It's in my sketchbook so is still in one piece - smile.)

(Day 17 of Leslie Saeta's '30 in 30'.)

266. Rain on the Horizon (Road to Supermarket)

Winsor & Newton watercolours and Pilot G-Tec C4 pen

in re-cased Seawhite sketchbook, 7.5" x7.5" (x2)

The supermarket is about four minutes drive from the house and this is the view on the right hand side. The clouds are sweeping over the Blue Mountains.

(Day 16 of Leslie Saeta's '30 in 30'.)

258. Welcome to Jamaica!

Winsor & Newton watercolours and Lamy Safari fountain pen on

Daler Rowney Mixed Media spiral sketchpad, A3

Thank God for Leslie Saeta's '30 in 30' coming round again! (Day 3)

I've been in Jamaica clearing my parents' house and putting it on the market. Only time for one piece of art (I'll post it in a few days) while I was there as we worked almost non-stop all day. This was the lovely 747 that took me there - 'Hot Lips'! (I came home on 'English Rose'.)

Painted first then fountain pen added.

NB. My apologies for the lack of artwork since May. I have quite a few sketches to post, done during that time (including some in Manchester where the Urban Sketchers Symposium was being held). I'm slowly getting around to photographing them and will backdate them so everything is eventually in the correct order.

Happy painting everyone!

244. Paint Fix

Pretty pastels

Wonderful watercolours

When life gets in the way of my art, I sometimes take a look at the delicious colours and have a sniff of my watercolours - no sniffing those pastels though! Stroking brushes helps too...

(Posted later.)

230. Chocolate Lover? Nope!

W&N Watercolours, Unipin and Tombow pens with 

Pilot Super Colour Gold and Silver pens and Chinagraph pencil

in Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

That's right; I don't like chocolate!

227. Table Decoration

Pilot G-tec C4 Pen and W&N Watercolours

in Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

Sketch of a little table decoration in Gelato's and a quotation by Robert Brault.

221. Window Decoration

Staedtler Fineliner 0.05 pen, W&N waterolours

in Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5"

My friend and I had a pot of tea each a couple of weeks ago and, as we always have some art materials with us whenever we meet - and this tiny little window decoration was looking its best - we got the paints out!

219. USK - Sketching the Wallace Collection 2 of 2

Pilot G-Tec C4 pen, W&N watercolours and Tombow brushpen

in Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2).

This sketch was done in the Wallace Collection Restaurant with USK London on Saturday. As usual, Katherine made us sketch the fare before consuming it. I don't like strawberries, cream, etc, so just had a pot of (lovely) tea and sketched someone else's cream tea.

The restaurant staff were really encouraging, walking around and commenting on our sketches and we were so pleased they allowed us to paint at the tables (not inside the galleries though!).

One newbie and two regulars - I always love the international flavour of Urban Sketchers London! In our little group of four (above), the only continent not represented was Australasia but I bet further down the table (below), there was at least one. (Almost 20 of the 30+ sketching on Saturday stayed for cream teas.)

216. Pizza and Paint at LCF

Pilot C4 G-Tec pen and Winsor & Newton watercolours in

Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

Happy February everyone.

215. At Suzie's

Pilot C4 G-Tec pen and Winsor & Newton watercolours in

Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

Every so often, our friend Suzie invites some of her painting and musical friends over for an 'art and music' day. She has a collection of red and white crockery and utensils and we cheekily raided her cupboards and laid them out and painted them. I left out a few of the items as I liked this setup.

212. Sketchcrawl 23.01.2016

Pilot C4 G-Tec pen and Winsor & Newton Watercolours 
in Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

Up four flights of stairs(!) and I arrived in the rafters in 'Project Space' (in an art gallery) this afternoon and this is what we did. A complex scene and I made a ton load of errors; nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon thanks to the Urban Sketchers group in Northampton.

208. Losing the Plot...

W&N Watercolour and Pilot G-Tec C4 pen in

Stillman & Birn Alpha 5.5" x 8.5" (image: 6" x 8.25")

With Christmas approaching, I've done a ton of art leading up to it but none simply for the sake of it. I was starting to lose the plot so dug out a photo I stopped to take on leaving Luton Hoo a month or so ago and painted it. I feel better now…!

After Christmas Day, I'll post one of the projects I finished last week which someone asked me to do for their friend.

I'm sorry I haven't visited any of your blogs and sites recently; I'll catch up with you all as soon as I can.

Happy Christmas; happy holidays and happy painting to you all. xxx

Before cropping the photo.

128. Yummy Fruit

Pilot G-Tec C4 Watersoluble pen

on Arches watercolour paper, 4" x 4"

We had a bereavement at Easter and we've been travelling up and down the motorway, preparing photographs and the order of service, etc. It's been a sad time which is why I've not posted for so long - please accept my apologies.  After I came out of hospital recently, a dear colleague and friend visited, bringing along this yummy fruit - pineapple, mango, pomegranate, dates and brazil nuts. The colours were great so I couldn't resist rearranging a few and taking a few photographs as I knew I'd want at least to sketch them later on down the line; I'm glad I did. Needless to say, although the nuts and dates lasted a little longer than the soft fruit, we polished them off long ago!

Drum Leaf Binding

A while ago I discovered 'drum leaf binding' which is a great way of putting illustrated or photographed pages together - you end up with completely flat spreads (actually they open backwards) so you don't lose anything into the gutter of the page. You also end up with double-thick pages so wet applications of paint, markers, etc, are unlikely to bleed through to the neighbouring page. (It's also good for doing panoramic images.) I was curious to give it a try so bought a few large sheets of different types of watercolour paper. It's tricky but I was so pleased with the result that I made a little case for it using fabric-covered greyboard. I then cut out some coloured endpapers and bound it all into a proper sketchbook.  I wish you all a happy, healthy and hopefully arty weekend. 

123. Sunshine Bakery in Pastel

Schminke and Unison Soft Pastels over watercolour
on Daler Rowney Murano paper, 12" x 16"

I clean forgot to post up this pastel painting from Roger Dellar's workshop on the 5th. I found this extremely difficult but ultimately very rewarding - the loose effect is so far from my style. I was often concentrating so much on trying to make it more abstract, I forgot to vary my mark-making. It was a great day though and Roger was again generous in sharing his knowledge. Even if I had just watched him paint it would have been enough just to see how he develops his paintings.

Work in progress images below:

Initial watercolour wash

Blocking in with pastels

Adding figures

Yep! That's a cannon from the war!

119. Bluefields in Pastel and Watercolour

Watercolour and Schminke Soft Pastels

on Daler Rowney Murano Paper, 16" x 12"

Work in progress images

Initially, wrinkly, crinkly!