Autumn finally arrives

The weather here has been pretty dismal; lots of wind and rain and of course it's now a little too dark to get any after-work sketching done :( However, I have been trying to get some reference photographs to keep me busy over the coming blustery autumn and chilly winter months. This one is based on a photo I took on a recent dog walk with that now infamous show-stealing canine model himself :) It started life as a watercolour which I subsequently ran under the tap - twice! At this point I decided to give up with watercolour and get out the Kremer and Sennelier soft pastels to see where that took me. But that looked awful too lol, so I dissolved much of the dry pastel with water and then finished off a few highlights in the foreground with dry pastel and some of the tree branches with dry and wet watercolour pencil. A true multimedia experience ... or perhaps a bit of a mess. You decide :)

Happy painting, be it wet or dry!

Autumn woodland walk, mixed media on Arches 300gsm/140lb Rough, 23cm x 31cm/9" x 12"

Electric Sunrise

I work quite close to my home but the landscape changes rapidly as I make my way to the office. The semi-rural soon gives way to the cluttered and less pleasant urban and industrial areas of the town. Being close to major road and rail links is great when you want to get anywhere but not so pleasing to the eye, or at least not for most of the day. However, this was the scene that greeted me a few days ago as I walked the last few yards to work. The beautiful glowing sunset created eery silhouettes of the nearby hedgerows and the railway pylons of the electrified East Coast Mainline which carries passengers and freight to and from London and the North East throughout the day. I took a photograph with my phone camera and used that as my reference Sometimes beauty can be found in the unlikeliest of places :)

On a sad note, I'm sure many of you are already aware of Jane Minter's recent post about the copying of one of her beautiful paintings. I'm sure, like me, you all share in Jane's disheartened feelings about this :(

Additiionally, my thoughts also go out to Maggie Latham who has recently fallen victim of several episodes of copyright issues which has ultimately led to her (sadly) closing down her 1000 washes blog. Maggie describes her reasons in her post here. I for one will miss Maggie's unending enthusiasm and love for pure watercolour.

Finally, my number of followers has increased quite a bit over the last few weeks and will very soon be catching up with my age LOL :) Lots of inspiring blogs for you to check out, some of which are already on my sidebar.

Tara for now. Have a great weekend everyone and of course .... Happy painting :)

Electric Sunsrise, watercolour in Fabriano Venezia sketchbook, 18cm x 25cm/7" x 10"

The haystack and the honey bee (with better images)

As you may have noticed, I've been a little inactive with posting lately since I've not had a great deal of time to do much art that is worthy of posting. However, when I have had the time, I have been re-evaluating where I want to go with watercolour, reading some of my collection of art books, gaining inspiration and generally playing with some new colour ideas and techniques which I hope to try out properly very soon.

Despite the hiatus, I still managed to get a quick sketch done yesterday on the way home from work. I went back to a local farm that I had sketched recently and was intrigued by the haystack that had appeared since my last visit. The sketch was done a little too hastily and that haste became even worse when a bee that was bigger than a hummingbird decided it liked the taste of the honey in my Schmincke paints! After digesting all that Cadmium and Cobalt it's probably become a radioactive mutant ninja bee now lol. Dissatisfied with the sketch, I decided to rework it into a complete painting and a better composition, all done in the comfort of home! I'm still not entirely  happy with the result but overall it's a reasonable effort.

PS These images, which were photographed in daylight, replace the original awful scanned images I originally posted - time to put the scanner away I think :)

Haystack, watercolour and Inktense pencil on Clairefontaine 300gsm/140lb Not, 24cm x 30cm/9.5" x 12"

And especially for Sue, here's the original sketch.

Happy painting and have a lovely weekend everyone. Normal posting will be resumed as soon as possible :)

The river in flood

I painted this one from a reference photo that I took in February 2010 just before sunset and at a time when the River Great Ouse was quite high and had started to overflow onto the flood meadows that line its banks for much of its course through Huntingdon and the neighbouring villages . This particular part of the river is where I often sit and relax after a good or bad day at the office! This painting and the one in my previous post were both painted using Royal Talens Rembrandt artists watercolours - they are a delight to use and may very well become my favourites! Those Dutch know a thing or two about paint you know ;) Happy sketching and painting everyone :)

River Great Ouse in flood, watercolour on Arches 300gsm/140lb Rough, 23cm x 31cm/9" x 12"

Down by the river

It's been quite a busy week at work with one of our massive team of three off on holiday and the other 'working from home' - yeah right, lol. So that left me. Oh well, I still managed to get away early today and stop off by the river in town on the way home to do a quick sketch. I keep promising myself to do more drawing like this so this was a good start towards fulfilling that promise. I used a 3B watersoluble graphite pencil, not in my Moleskine this time, but in a small square format cartridge sketchbook which opens out perfectly flat to allow you to work across the pages as I did here. One day I'll manage to sketch fast enough to capture one of the many canoeists or rowers that use this calm stretch of water to practice :)

River Great Ouse, watersoluble graphite, 4" x 8"

Fields of gold and green

Despite the threat of rain from the weatherman it was absolutely glorious this evening so I  managed to get another sketch in on the way home from work. I took a slight diversion and headed off down a country lane to find a suitable spot to sit and paint. I managed to find somewhere tucked well away from curious neighbours or gun-toting farmers this time lol. This was done using my Schmincke watercolours in my pocket watercolour Moleskine.

Huntingdon farm landscape, Watercolour Moleskine

Out here in the fields

I managed to get a little more sketching in this evening. I just had to capture a nice bit of Cambridgeshire rural landscape and so I took a detour on the way home and sat by the side of a farm road and sketched the recently harvested fieds of gold and the farm buildings. I had to negotiate with the combine harvester driver on the way out of the lane and decided that I was starting to become an unwelcome guest. You know how farmers are - Get orrffff my land! Well I managed to get a nice sketch on one of the hottest days  we've had so far so it was well worth the hassle :) I've also rescanned the previous pages in my sketchbook to show you another sketch of  the lightning tree which I did yesterday plein air.

Farm buildings, Huntingdon, Watercolour Moleskine

The crooked house, Ely / The lightning tree, Hartford, Watercolour Moleskine

The Weak Bridge

This is a quick sketch, completed on the spot in pencil on the way home from work, with watercolour and a little BrushPen added later at home. This is a very old stone bridge that crosses the River Great Ouse between Huntingdon and the neighbouring Roman town of Durovigutum (or Godmanchester as it is now known). The bridge can only take light traffic and so there is a 'Weak Bridge' sign on the approaches to it. My wife and I always laugh and make groaning sounds whenever we cross over it. You'd just have to be there to appreciate the joke ;)

My blog has now come of age and so I'd like to say 'Hi' to my latest followers, Maggie and Sharon, who have pushed the total up to twenty-one this week. I'd also like to say a big 'thank you' to all of my lovely followers. You all make it very worthwhile :O) !

The Old Bridge, Huntingdon, watercolour, 8" x 5.5"

A further pause for thought

Some of you may remember an earlier post of mine that featured this statue of the Thinking Soldier from a slightly different angle. I did a fairly detailed pencil sketch on Bockingford 140lb watercolour paper but I didn't have a lot of time so I decided to take a reference photo and finish it later. When I got home I used my set of Caran D'Ache gouache cakes and a 1/4" flat synthetic brush to add colour, using the photo for reference.

Huntingdon Market Square, gouache on paper, 5" x 7"

... in that quiet earth

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

Powerful words indeed, taken from the last lines of 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte. In a previous life (metaphorically speaking), I lived a few miles from the Bronte Parsonage in Yorkshire and it was a delight to walk the same cobbled streets that those famous sisters had done so many years before and below the moors where Emily had found the inspiration to write such beautiful prose.

So I stopped for a while in town on the way home from work tonight and sat and sketched in an old cemetery, now carefully maintained as a beautiful garden complete with willows and a monkey puzzle tree. I did the initial drawing in pencil, added watercolour and then a few scribbles with a pen filled with Indian ink. I actually prefer dip pens back at base, but to avoid having to take bottles I use a Pelikan Steno fountain pen which has a nice flexible nib and is actually designed for taking shorthand! It started raining, but luckily I had just about finished and managed to get the sketchbook safely away in my sketchbag and headed off to Starbucks for a well-earned Latte and a slice of blackcurrant cheesecake. Nom, nom :)

Old cemetery, Huntingdon, ink and watercolour, 5" x 7"