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 return of Moley

I've decided to take a bit of a break from big paintings and get back to what I truly enjoy the most - sketching in pen, pencil and watercolour. We made a trip to Ely yesterday and although it was a little overcast here in the East of England, the sun did appear long enough to allow us to see the magnificent cathedral in all its glory. Art materials were purchased as usual lol: a tube of white gouache, a stencil brush that looked useful (?), two pipettes for re-wetting paints, yet another Lamy fountain pen, and a pocket watercolour Moleskine.

I really blow hot and cold over Moleskines but I know a lot of sketching artists out there in blogland absolutely adore them. I dislike their waxy paper sketchbooks as much as they dislike my watercolour media, although they are good for pen, graphite and coloured pencil but I prefer all-media cartridge paper like in the Daler Rowney Ebony. The Moleskine watercolour sketchbooks, on the other hand, are very nice, but only available in landscape orientation - come on Moleskine, listen to your customers! Nethertheless, I decided to make a start in mine with a few sketches done in watercolour and watercolour pencils, using mobile phone photos for reference. I call it pseudo plein aire! Hope you are all having a great weekend.

Extreme plein air sketching

These are my last offerings for you from my week's holiday here in the beautiful county of Dorset :( The first one was a very bizarre experience indeed for me. I thought that sitting in a quiet country lane at 8:00 in the morning wouldn't attract too much attention but I happened to pick a place where the owner of a thatched cottage, just to the right of the one I sketched, happened to be an amateur painter too! He stood and chatted with me and watched me make almost every mark. It could have been a horrible experience but it wasn't and now I have no fear of onlookers and also know how expensive it is to buy hay for horses LOL! The second one was done under much less pressure while I was relaxing on one of the National Trust beaches in Studland, a strip of loveliness along the Dorset coast and a fabulous place to sketch. I just threw my watercolour pencils onto my beach rug as I worked!
Have a lovely weekend everyone, Michael.

Ulwell cottage, Watercolour, Derwent A5 sketchbook

Here is an almost identical view of the actual place on Google Maps. Judging by the lovely show of daffodils in the grass verges, I would say the Google car took this photograph around April time. If you pan the camera to the right, you can see the thatched cottage, the left hand side of which was the the home of the onlooker that watched me paint! If you pan the camera further to the right, you can see the rough track where I sat and sketched.



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Middle Beach, Studland, watercolour pencil, Derwent A5 sketchbook

By the seaside

I hope this works since Blogger/Picasa seems to be broken at the moment and images aren't showing up on either my blog or any of my friends' blogs. Also, I'm on holiday at the moment and so I had to resort to using my camera since I have no scanner! So apologies if this looks a bit of a mess (or doesn't work at all).

These are a few sketches that I've managed to fit in over the last few days. I was hoping to do a lot more but I've been busy enjoying the sunshine, the scenery, the entertainment and the food and drink :) The weather has been excellent to date, although it has rained overnight and is just starting to clear up now. Hope you are all well, Michael :O)

Paddling with Grandad, gouache, 7" x 10"

Polka dot mother with baby, Derwent A5 sketchbook

Bournemouth Park, Derwent A5 sketchbook

Purbeck sunrise, Derwent A5 sketchbook

Knoll Beach, Studland, Derwent A5 sketchbook

People on the beach, Swanage, Derwent A5 sketchbook

Early morning sunlight, Ulwell caravan park, Derwent A5 sketchbook

Ulwell caravan park, Derwent A5 sketchbook

View from Bournemouth park, Derwent A5 sketchbook

Going for the one

I'm getting myself psyched up ready to have a go at doing a big painting. I have painted big before - well up to quarter imperial anyway, so it's not going to be such a big deal. I even got my oils out of storage to remind myself of the colours I have and to make sure I had everything I might need if and when the inspiration and time arrives! I'm still undecided about whether or not it's going to be an oil, a pastel or a watercolour. I may even go for gouache. I'm thinking of doing something based on the charcoal drawing in my earlier post, New Horizons, which seemed to get a very good reaction from all of you lovely people out there. It was done from imagination so I have no colour references to help me to take it from the value study I had done but I had a little play with my Inktense pencils just to get a feel for how I could approach a colour version of the scene. I expect I will do a few of these sketches before I'm happy enough to do a full painting.

PS Most pencil manufacturers will tell you not to dip their products directly into water but if you sharpen Inktense pencils properly - with a craft knife or similar, not a conventional sharpener - and expose enough of the core, you can then dip the leads directly into water and then you get fantastic effects almost like painting with mini oilbars! The slight caveat is that continuous dipping of the pencils, as is the case with other water soluble media, does tend to soften the core a little so just be aware of this.

Back to basics

I have been neglecting my watercolour painting a little recently but I have been using the time wisely. I know that I need to hone my observation and drawing skills before I can truly develop as a watercolour painter. Every accomplished artist will tell you that being able to see and record values is extremely important and will serve you well whatever your chosen medium. Only once you have that skill can you then develop your compositional skills, colour theory and painting techniques. That's how I see it anyway :)

To help me along the way towards becoming a better painter I've invested in what must be the cheapest of all art supplies - charcoal. I picked up a nice little boxed set of pencils, compressed and natural willow charcoal pieces for less than I normally spend on a single sketchbook:) I've been practicing with charcoal in all the different forms just to get to know how it behaves and so far I absolutely love it.

Just to take it a bit further I managed to do a little sketch on the way home from my work. I love to sit by the river but often find it difficult to pick a subject - there are so many I am spoiled for choice. This particular view of the house surrounded by willows and other trees by the river has often attracted me so with 30 mins to spare I sat down and drew it.

House by the willows

Finally, a big welcome to my latest follower Lucia B who has been one of my contacts on Flickr for quite a while. If you haven't already seen her lovely paintings of her home city of Firenze (Florence), then go take a look.  She always adds a little bit of historic background about each of the paintings that she posts. Thanks for following my blog, Lucia :)

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!