World Watercolour Month Second Week

Hi there, how are you?

It’s the second week of World Watercolour Month; I’ve been doing small things on watercolour paper. Some things have been posted and some are shall we say “practice peaces”.  Which ever pile they go to they are all valuable in teaching me the qualities of this particular watercolour paper.

Pink sycamore seeds – plump pink seeds ripening on the tree. They’re really pretty at this stage, it’s funny it’s only since I’ve started drawing that I noticed them at all.

Pink sycamore seeds

Brown aged, sycamore seeds – these are the seeds I usually notice in late summer or autumn. I run around the garden picking them up so they don’t turn my little garden into a forest!

brown sycamore seeds, dry and ready to grow.

Rose hip – (Well that green was certainly a poke in the eye!) These are fat juicy hips of the Japanese Rose (Rosa Rugosa) growing wild in a car park near us.

Rose hip (Rosa Rugosa)

Ginkgo Balboa leaves – painted from a photo I had taken a few years ago. Ginkgo’s have very pretty leaves.

Ginkgo leaves

Yellow rose bud – last year I had a small pot of tiny roses, they don’t normally last but this year one of them decoded to flower again, yay!

Yellow rose bud

Simple poppies – we have no poppies this year which is sad but I have lots of photos from last year. I tried to simplify them into a few simple brush strokes.

Simple poppies

Blossom – this is a random blossom from inside my head based on cherry or apple blossom, I wanted to try something with a background colour. It was mixed from turquoise and mauve watercolour and as the paint dried the colours split and granulated on the paper, interesting.

Some kind of blossom

I find I am quite slap dash with a paint brush, it’s necessary on my usual notebook paper because it sinks in fast, you have to keep the colour moving to stop the tide lines. The paper also pills with any amount of rubbing so no hanging about.

This is not the case on watercolour paper, I have longer to paint, lift and move paint, and it’s a very different experience.  I’m learning to slow down and use less water on the brush.

I’m enjoying this challenge, the biggest problem so far is figuring out what to paint.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x

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World Watercolour Month First Week

Hello people, how are you?

July 1^st is the start of world watercolour month; I tried this challenge last year and just over half way through was stopped in my tracks by a broken arm ooof. This year I’m trying again. (Click here to go to doodlewash’s page for details of what, why and where to donate if you want to.)

Truth is I got off to an inauspicious start, instead of painting lovely pictures I sat and filled out a list of colours!

Restart:
These moon Jellyfish after were fun to paint, I like the way it turned out

Moon jellyfish watercolour

Hibiscus flower, it became overworked very quickly! “ just need to put the brush down and back away slowly”

Hibiscus flower watercolour

More hibiscus flowers, broke out my very best Saunders Waterford paper for this one. I had been hoarding this tiny piece for ages. First try, ruined it completely ahhh! Turned it over and tried again this time just playing with brush strokes and shapes. This is my favourite so far, no pressure just playing about.

Hibiscus flower watercolour play

Still playing with the hibiscus flowers. I had a theory that if I painted the same thing over and over I would eventually work it out and get better at it, meh. It was a little better than day two but still missing something.

Watercolour of two hibiscus flowers

 

This is where I lose the plot and wonder why I’m doing this at all! I had been looking forward to this challenge for ages but I just wasn’t feeling it, then I realised I hadn’t set any parameters like I did in the Inktobers (e.g. use brush pen/dip-pen for all art works) it means that even if the art sucks I’m still working towards improving something. So instead of using my usual sketchbook (cartridge paper), all art is going to be painted on watercolour paper, it will help me to get used to how the water and paint reacts. It will maybe my new go-to paper?

Keep going:
This is my usual style of painting; it is on watercolour paper so everything reacted differently. It felt fresher and I really like the way the brush pen moves across this paper.

Watercolour and brush pen hibiscus flower

There is a lone Californian poppy plant in the garden; it seeded itself from last year. I sat in the garden with my watercolour paper and painted it in the sunshine, lots of fun.

Watercolour of a Californian poppy

I think painting small things and just getting used to the supplies I have is going to build up some of my confidence and skills plus it will be the most fun way to continue.
I’ll post the next seven here next week or you can catch them daily on instagram here.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x

A Day At The Horseshoe Pass

Shorn the sheep!

Hi there, how are you?

Last week we ventured out on to the horseshoe pass. It’s a pass between two sets of mountains near Llangollen in Wales.

My parents used to take us up there when we were kids to pick whinberries (bilberries) but I haven’t been there for years. There are no berries at the moment; it’s the wrong time of year.

A panoramic view of the horseshoe pass

You can walk for miles and see nothing but roaming hills, mounds of slate and sheep that wander over the heather. It’s a great place to get away from it all.

We challenged ourselves to draw a landscape in 15 minutes, this is the best I could muster, it’s only about 2”x3” I thought I would have a better chance of finishing something small. These are some of the hills in the distance.

Distant hills on the horseshoe pass 15 minute sketch

Once home I tried to paint from one of my photos, this was painted in one colour, perylene green trying to work out the tones.

Horseshoe pass tonal sketch

Did I mention the sheep? They had all been shorn recently so it was interesting to see their actual shape, they’re such a different shape with wool, see above for sheep sketches. Have to say most of my photos were of the backside of a sheep as they walked away from us.

This is the one that got away; she escaped the shearer’s clippers hehehe. I hope she doesn’t’ get too hot in this weather!

Avoiding the shearers clippers

It’s world watercolour month as from the 1^st July, this is where we all paint lots of lovely watercolours and share our stuff. If you’re not sure what it’s all about hears the link to doodlewashe’s site to tell you all about it  and if you feel like donating, it’s for a good cause.

I’ll post my first seven up together next week to spare your in boxes or you can catch me on instagram if you want to see as they go up.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x

More Garden Flowers To Draw

Honeysuckle painting outlined with a fountain pen

We’ve had such beautiful weather this week, just perfect for sitting out in the evening drawing flowers.

The honeysuckle is out, it’s not actually in the garden as such, it just drapes itself over the fence looking lovely. It’s a very obliging plant.

I’ve tried to draw honeysuckle before and always end up getting lost in the curly petals. This time I went straight in with water brush and paint. It seems that painting in the shapes first prevents my fiddling about with all those petals, and then I drew in the lines with a fountain pen. I like the way they turned out.

This page of honeysuckle is painted without any line work. I keep looking at it thinking maybe I should add the lines but I think leaving them like this will remind me how different they look as I look back through my sketchbook.

Honeysuckle painting without any outlining.

In the corner of the garden is a large shrub? It grows very fast and has to be pruned back hard every year. I have no idea what it’s called bur every year it’s covered in big yellow flowers. I drew them last year; you can see the drawings here.

I’m still trying to find the right yellow to do these flowers justice. I’m sure I’ll find it eventually.

A sketch of yellow flowers

 

These fuchsia flowers are not in my garden, I spotted them growing over somebody’s fence as I walked past so I snapped a photo on my ipod to draw later.

A drawing of Fuchsia flowers found growing over somebody’s fence

It is such a colourful time of year. Plants are growing, flowering away, and all I have to do is pull up the odd weed. sit back and draw them, love the warm summer evenings.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x

Blackberry Flowers,Weeds Or Drawing Opportunities?

a small 6 x 4″ watercolour on student grade paper.

Hi there, how are you?

I’ve been in the garden this week, R.I.P yellow poppy, it was fun while it lasted. The slugs ate the last few leaves this week, didn’t even leave a stump!

I have to say I’m not what you’d call a natural gardener but the one thing I have no problem growing is weeds. Blackberry plants are trying to take over the garden and as I set about pulling them out I saw the flowers and thought, ho ho here’s a good drawing opportunity. I took out my sketchbook, my little stool and started to draw. Not really surprising the weeds are taking over really is it?

I started drawing them with my preppy fountain pen, then pulled the ink about with a water brush. It dries in shades of blue, grey and brown which is a nice effect. I wish the scanner could pick up the colour better.

Blackberry flowers drawn in pen and ink

I had heard about the 30×30 challenge and wondered if I could paint something without drawing it first; it was also an opportunity to try some negative painting. It didn’t turn out too bad considering I was painting in a sketchbook on cartridge paper.

Blackberry flowers, painted negatively without drawing first.

 

I’m not doing this challenge, I just was just curious to see how hard it would be (very!) I might have a go at the doodle wash watercolour month. Try and get through the whole month this time.

Next I decided to go back to sketching lightly first. I like how the green poofed out and the colours split in this sketch. It was mixed with hookers green, perylene green (The only greens I have in my palette) and new gamboge (a strange mucky colour in the tube but paints out quite nicely).

Blackberry flowers sketch

The next painting is my favourite. It’s the picture at the top of the post. I used a photo and painted a small watercolour 6” x 4”, the greens worked really well. There are things to be fixed next time but over all it makes me happy.

Next job – weeding! It’s all very well distracting me with pretty flowers but those brambles have to go!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x

Bees, With And Without Fluff

1st page of bee sketches

Hi there, how are you?

The sun is shining, the flowers are out and so are the bees.

Word of warning there will be drawings of insecty things, if that’s not your thing or it creeps you out (to be fair some of them creep me out!) this post may not be for you. Come back next week and I’ll try and draw something a little prettier.

2nd page of bee sketches

So, I’ve been drawing bees. I’ve drawn them before here  and here.so I didn’t think it would be much of a problem, boy was I wrong! The first bees I drew are not shown because of their suckiness, back to bee drawing school for me!

Above are two sketchbook pages drawn over a few days of any bees I could find on the internet.

A day or so later I took a biro and a small sketchbook, and drew some bees from memory, actually not too bad, the tiny bees are as big as my little finger nail, they’re kind of cute.

Sketches of bees drawn with a biro

Bees (bumble bees) are like little fluff balls, hair every where. To see what is going on under the fluff I decided to draw some wasps, thinking of them as sort of naked bees as you do?

I’m not fussed on wasps, they’re mean and sting you just for the fun of it, then sting you again. They also try to steal your lemonade but as a means to an end they will have to do.

Drawing them was fun, I put my sketchbook away till the next day, opened it up to check how they turned out (they always look different with fresh eyes) Eeep! They look slightly more realistic than I was expecting and I don’t know about you but they definitely creep me out!

If I trick myself into not noticing the insectyness of them they are graphically speaking quite beautiful and I really like the shapes they make with their bodies.

Phew, the end of the insect post, well done, you made it to the end hehehe!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x

Sketching Wisteria At The Botanical Gardens

A sketch of purple wisteria

Hi there, how are you?

It’s the time of the year for wisteria. I love to see it flower. It hangs and drips off walls and fences, it really is beautiful.

At the local botanical garden they have a lovely long arch-way covered in both purple and yellow wisteria. This part of the garden is currently free to the public so we decided to spend a day in the sunshine drawing it.

The wisteria archway

I find trying to paint the whole thing a bit much so I drew parts of the plant, much easier to deal with.  Here I am drawing the yellow flowers, again just a small branch with a few sprays of flowers on.

Drawing yellow wisteria in the sunshine

In this next one I was trying to give more of an impression of one of the plants, I was using my sketch book made from cartridge paper, not good for washy things so not a brilliant effort but it gives kind of the impression of what I was looking at.

My daughter had brought watercolour paper with her and after seeing my poor effort gave a small piece to me.

I’ll have to imagine the metal support of the arch structure because I had forgotten to draw it in.

It’s funny how time flies and after being deeply engrossed in what we were doing realised it was almost time to go home.

We set ourselves a challenge, 10 minutes to draw/paint some wisteria.

Eeep! Where to start, I chose a bunch of purple flowers and started to paint, no drawing or roughing it out just straight onto the paper and since I now had a piece of watercolour paper that was what I used to paint them on.

This was the painting from my 10 minute challenge.

It was just a quick little sketch but this was actually my favourite painting of the day, it’s clean, simple and not overworked. Maybe we should do more of this it was a lot of fun.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x

 

Magpies – Meet The New Neighbours

A sketch of a magpie protecting his patch.

Hi there, how are you?

Every year the birds come and nest in the huge sycamore tree on the other side of our fence. All of the little birds, blue tits, robins, sparrows, blackbirds even pigeons nested early this year.

The bigger birds crows and magpies normally keep to the small patch of woods not too far away, this year however there seems to be an abundance of magpies, and they’re every where!

Meet the new neighbours.

Usually the little birds gang together to mob the magpies or crows and chase them away because they will eat almost anything, including bird eggs and chicks.

The magpies have decided to move into the sycamore. Lucky the little birds have finished and fledged so, meet the new neighbours.

Mr & Mrs Magpie

I have taken a few photos throughout the week and decided to try and draw from them.

Magpies are black and white I know but as the sun catches their wings the feathers become iridescent and flash blue or turquoise.

A watercolour painting in my sketchbook.

Most of these have been drawn on a white background and I wanted to paint them sitting in the tree. This should really have been painted on watercolour paper but since I had already drawn the magpies in my sketchbook I just carried on adding colour (I need to use backgrounds more often because I really do need the practice)

It’s very exciting watching the wildlife in my own back yard..

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x