This farm shop punnet of strawberries looked so wonderful I just had to do a ink and watermedia sketch. I have my sketch book which has a nice midtone colour which helps speed up the process. White was done with a pitt artist brush pen. A nice treat to eat them after the sketch was finished.
I am not long back from a trip to Mull. The weather was wonderful and enabled me to get outdoors for sketching. This sketch however is from the Argyll Hotel on Iona. What a view form the sunroom! Once I finished my lunch I could not resist to take my watercolours out and sketch the view.
I have a group of 5 female pheasants visiting the garden. The deal is that they eat and I can draw and paint them. Today there were 7, two male pheasants had joined them. The males are strikingly beautiful however the females have a subtle purple sheen to their feathers. I love to see them in the garden and miss them when they don’t turn up for a day or two.
I was able to get out and about to do some sketching on the weekend. Weather was windy as often it is at Elie. I think it makes me work quicker about (15 mins) and adds to the atmosphere to the sketch. Over the weekend I managed to get quite a number of sketches done.
It has been a while since I have done a blog post. After a busy and successful time at Pittenweem Arts Festival we had a holiday in Canada to visit my brother and family. I took the opportunity to get some sketching outdoors when possible. Below is the photo reference of my subject and also one of me at work. The third photo shows my sketch in progress along with my colour reference chart so that I can give reference codes to colours observed at the time. Photo’s don’t always show the exact colour as seen with the eye. Now that I am home I can use studio time to bring back the memories and apply paint to this study.
The poppies in the garden this year were glorious. These oriental poppies were painted out in the garden with the bees buzzing around. I thought that the painting would also look good cropped into a panorama format and so used it for my festival banner.
The Pittenweem Arts Festival starts on the 2nd August and running until the 10th August. My web site has a page showing some of the paintings I will be exhibiting. See my Pittenweem Arts Festival 2014 page.
Bucket and spade and off to the beach! I love doing these sketches of kid’s at the beach. I look forward to doing this in colour.
At the weekend Andrew and I went to Inverary for a short break. We stayed in a lovely guest house called Newton Hall. It was a real treat to stay here, the owner made us feel really welcome. The views over Loch Fyne were spectacular. The photo above shows the view. I did a quick study using watercolour and neocolour crayons as the sun was setting. Then we went to the George Hotel for a wonderful meal.
When I got up I used my tombow pens for this monotone study of the misty morning light before we both headed for a full Scottish breakfast. The two birds flew past just at the right moment for me to consider them in the composition, very convenient of them.
This morning we have had a fresh fall of snow. Weather bright and snow still pristine I took myself outside to sketch. I didn’t even get through the gate before finding an interesting scene before my eye’s. I have sketched this with my Tombow art pen’s because they are nice and fast to use. I took pencil notes of observations on the opposite page. I did this in about 20mins and my feet felt like blocks of ice! However I was not far from home and a nice rewarding coffee.