Sunday 29 May 2011

Time to unwind

As you may remember from my last post, I'm busy decorating at the moment and so finding any time at all to dedicate to my art has been a tad difficult :( To make things worse, the weather here in the UK is a bit changeable for the Bank Holiday weekend. Despite all that, in between the dark bits, I managed to sneak away from my painting duties. Loiue the Beagle had been patiently waiting for his walk all day so I took him for a walk by the riverbank and, while he was bounding around making his own fun in the long grass, I managed to do a couple of pencil sketches. These were done on facing pages in a W&N heavyweight A6 sketchbook with a 2B pencil. Happy weekend everyone!

19 comments:

  1. Yay for dog walks! :)

    Like the first, but would leave the mountain out and concentrate on the tree, should you paint it.

    Second is just perfect! Hope you're going to paint it? :) xx

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  2. Great sketches!
    Are you going to paint them?
    Enjoy the weekend!

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  3. Thanks, Pat. Erm, it's not a mountain - this is supposed to be Cambridgeshire LOL! That'll teach me. I must admit that I did rush the top one a bit so it doesn't read quite so well! I definitely agree with you about the second one making a good painting :)

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  4. Thanks Judy. Yes, as I said to Pat, I think I probably will paint the bottom one. I may even try oils or pastels. On the other hand I may just stick with good old watercolors :)

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  5. Great sketches Michael, especially the second one. You've got a lot of detail in there considering you're only on A6 paper. Good luck with the not-so-pleasant painting. ;-)

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  6. Thanks very much, John. I try to take as little gear as possible if I'm dog walking so A6 or A5 is the limit, but I do want to start using A4 or similar. Just taking a well-earned break from the not-so-pleasant-painting :-)

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  7. Being out there with your dog, your pencil and paper... so who's better than you??
    thanks for the visit to my blog .. BJ

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  8. Thanks BJ, put like that, I guess noone is better off - although I wouldn't mind being a bit wealthier! Note to self: stop buying art supplies :-)

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  9. These are great.

    Whenever I take mum & dad's dog out, he sulks if he is not the centre of attention or sits on me, so I can't sketch on his walks! I'm glad Louie is more amenable.

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  10. Thanks, Sue. This time Louie was good but he does tend to wander off when I'm deep in concentration !

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  11. Great sketches Michael.
    How long have you been working on the sketches?

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  12. Dank je Renske! I worked for about 25 minutes on the bottom sketch and a little less time on the top one.

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  13. Forget the decorating, Michael and concentrate on real painting!!! Love these sketches.

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  14. Thank you, Anita. I wish I could forget the decorating! Hope you enjoyed your Bavaria trip and got time to do some of your awesome drawings :-)

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  15. Michael your sketches are truly remarkable! I love the fence especially in the bottom one, and the pattern of light and darks is perfect. Hope you find some more time soon! :)

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  16. I like the closeup of the tree but particularly like the second sketch. It's a really good idea to do as much sketching as possible. It helps sort out the value studies before painting.
    Jean

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  17. Crystal, thank you. I was thinking continuously - dark against light, light against dark - so I'm glad that it worked :)

    Jean, thank you. Yes, I'm getting as much drawing practise as I can to help me to get the values right when I paint :)

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  18. Just brilliant, really fabulous! You really do offer so much variety :0)

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  19. Aw, thank you very much Sandra. What a lovely comment :)

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