Urban sketching in Cornwall

 ~ Cornwall ~

We've been there before and decided to take a few days again in Lostwithiel

Knowing I would be taking my sketching/painting gear with me, I put out the question to one of the Groups I belong to on Facebook - South Cornwall Sketchclubs

If you don't ask you don't find out and fortunately I wasn't disappointed.  

I've always thought there are people out there wanting to sketch in company, they only need to be asked.

As I wasn't totally familiar with places (indoors as it is January), I was reliant on suggestions and 

Suzannah Ford from the sketch group agreed that the Duchy of Cornwall Nursery & Garden Centre would be a good place.

It was definitely too cold for sketching outside and we were really lucky to get seating in front of the log fire in the restaurant.  

The staff were great, they came round to see if we needed anything and left us to happily sketch and draw for a couple of hours.

Suzannah's painting on the left - mine on the right

and the Carrot cake was delicious - beyond delicious in fact Yum!

Gouache in moleskine sketchbook 12" x 9"

I will definitely be asking sketch groups again when we are away - no doubt there will be fellow sketchers out there happy to join in.

footnote:   Suzannah - Really nice to have met you.

🎨🎨🎨

Cornwall sketching

New places always inspire me to sketch and paint.  The weather recently wasn't on my side for plein air painting, so I opted to Sketch instead.   

Cornwall full of inspiration and surprises

On the way down, we stopped at Porthtowan,

and I sketched using my Concertina book

This is a good example of limiting what to draw.  There were actually a lot more buildings on the hillside, but the main focus for me is the tall building, so I kept it simple.

Another day we visited Mousehole

(no not pronounced Mouse Hole....it's actually more like

MOUZ ALL)

The little harbour had a lot of boats, but again I stuck with the ones that stood out

On our walk into Mousehole we came across the old Lifeboat Station

I'll leave you to read the following clips from the above notice

Families at the time had several of their love ones onboard the rescue vessel, and I think I'm correct in saying that following this tragic event, the RNLI brought in a rule that people from the same family couldn't go out on a rescue call together.

Here's a bit more info from Wikipedia

Another day we visited a former Mine

Namely Levant Mine - a National Trust property - and I saw an original Beam engine working
Wow! those old boys certainly knew how to make machines back in the day

We got about in Cornwall quite a bit, and I even cycled a few times...No, I didn't sketch whilst I cycled!

This next sketch was from the car (it was cold and windy that day)

in fact I completed this later

The next is more of an observational sketch than scenic.  We parked up and had a coffee

 - well what else would I do whilst sitting there -

Yes you guessed, I Sketched

It's fascinating People Watching

This was at Gwithian 

We then drove further along the road to another car park and walked across the headland

So glad we walked, as there was a spot where you could look down onto a secluded beach

and guess what, there were lots of seals there

Our trip to Cornwall was certainly worth it.