On Saturday we went to the Isle of May sailing from Anstruther. We were in search of puffins who were out fishing at sea! There was a few on the island however which were a joy to watch. Lots of other sea birds everywhere. You need to be careful to watch for the eiders nesting very close to the footpaths. I did this study on the island buffeted by the wind. The constant movement of my board helped create some of the movement in the painting.
Auchmithie is one of my favourite places to escape to and paint outdoors. It is especially appealing when there are lots of crashing waves. The sound is just amazing as the large pebbles crash together. On Saturday the waves were wonderful. This is one of my watercolour studies I did in situ.
I took my pot of pansies from the garden into the studio. This allowed me to work away with the advantages of the light not changing much throughout the day. I put them on my window sill which is just at nice level for me to paint while standing at my easel. I worked in watercolour and finished off with using neocolour water soluable wax pastels.
This is a larger studio piece. Pittenweem in the East Neuk of Fife always gives me so much inspiration for my work. There is always something happening at the harbour that makes standing to watch entertaining.
This was my drawing from last nights life drawing class. I used vandyke ink to block in the major shapes, then once that had dried I did my drawing over the ink. I used charcoal initially then conte to get a nice strong dark. I finished by putting some pastel colour to indicate the blanket she was lying on.
This study was inspired by our trip to Mull in our campervan. This was the view from our campsite at Fidden Farm! At night the sounds of the wind across the water were awesome. We had this beach all to ourselves. Shared only by a few wandering sheep.
Yesterday I got my watercolours out and topped up my paint tray with fresh colours. I started the day doing colour mixing studies. It can be quite time consuming but once done can give some new combinations of colours to experiment with. I really enjoyed doing this figurative painting.
This pastel landscape was painted on Pastelmat pastel paper. The paper grips the pastel really well. It also blends nicely to give a soft effect to the painting.
Today Andrew and I are celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversary. My present to Andrew is this portrait of him and our cat Xena, who has been with us now for 10 of those 20 years.
This is a study I did today using mostly muted grey shades of pastels. The colours helped to capture the feeling of mood and drama I felt about the scene.