Quick sketch

The views around us here in Devon are definitely paintings waiting to be tried.  However, the weather isn't always in our favour for stopping to plein air, so I try to use my 'memory' to recall the view later.  It is good practise as memory recall on views is an important part of painting, imho ;)

And is exactly what I did with this Ink & Watercolour using a postcard pad, which incidentally I've been using for some of the Dottie/Barney sketches recently (see my other blog).

Not an exactness, but pretty near...

Quite pleased with this as there's enough information for me to do an oil painting of it one day.

An accolade

I get painting inspiration all over the place and at odd times.  Some people have asked me to paint a specific scene, but other times (and mostly) I choose scenes myself to paint -  these vary considerably from landscapes to seascapes to pets...the list goes on.   And sometimes, quite out of the blue, I see an image and think "I've got to paint that", it's like a bolt out of the blue moment and I can't ignore it.  The paints are out faster than I can say Paint!

This happened recently when I read a fellow bloggers post.  LG had added a memory of a little dog they had owned, now over the rainbow bridge.  But seeing the photo of this beloved pet, I knew I had to do a painting.  I got my watercolours out this time, and simply sketched the photo image and then added watercolour.  A quick impression of this adorable little dog, and the outcome was as I hoped.

Let me jump back slightly here - some time ago I did a painting of a friends horse, didn't tell her but put the image online where I knew she would see it.  Sort of expected a reaction, but No Nothing. She had seen it too, because there had been a 'Like' to the image, but she didn't comment about it being like her horse....So that told me, I hadn't hit the mark with that one, and goes to show that sometimes you just don't quite get the pet right.

Hence, I hadn't said anything to LG  about doing a painting of her little dog - after all, when someone does a painting of a loved pet no longer with us, the outcome could be very disappointing.  I thought it best to simply add the drawing online, and see if there was a comment.   And there was.  LG commented that it was just like her little dog!   There you go, her reaction was heartfelt and for me it confirmed that I had got it right.   

I messaged back to LG, saying Yes, it was from an image of her little dog and offered her the painting.  After all, I hadn't arranged to paint it for her, so it wasn't a Commission piece.  

It is now with her in the USA and I'm delighted that she loves it.   Even more delighted that she added this on her facebook page:

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 ~ For me, this makes painting such a joy ~

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The Walled Garden - Plein air painting

Another plein air painting session at Arlington Court yesterday.  Lucky that the weather came out sunny, having been very overcast during the morning.

I set up my easel in the walled garden this time and decided to do a watercolour of the foxgloves.

Bees were plentiful and {{busy bees}} too, but they didn't bother me.  Something nice about hearing bees a buzzing whilst painting.

(Look, I had even worn my coat over there, but found it much too hot to keep on, so my trolley looked after it for me)

I'm after a loose Impressionistic painting here...

Waiting for paint to dry, I poured myself a coffee from the flask I brought along,
just had to remember Not to dip the brushes into it instead of the water pot!

Glad I decided to do the foxglove painting

~ what do you think? ~

As an extra, here's a quick sketch of
The Old Granary which was about 5 minutes walk from the walled garden

 All in all that was a good painting session,
and I'm looking forward to the next time,
but where to paint?....ummm, you'll have to wait for that.


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Plein air at Arlington Court

The weather was perfect for plein air painting earlier this week at

Arlington Court

Decided to set up my easel in the gardens and found the perfect spot under the wisteria arch.  It gave me a great view along the pathway to the conservatory.

Perfect weather to dry my watercolours without having to wait too long.

The difference a few brush strokes make

Okay I have to admit, this is only an example and not an artwork of great note.  However, I DID enjoy painting it.  On our recent holiday down to Cornwall I did, not only paintings for sale, but also sketching.  SOME of those sketches turned into little paintings in their own right.  I love it when that happens.

Here's an example of how a FEW added details can bring a painting to life and make it pop.
This is with GOUACHE, so by nature it dries flat and opaque  ~ something I love about this medium ~

My initial wash of colour

St. Michael's Mount, Penzance

and then I added Permanent White 

(not much though)

plus a person on the beach

Is it just me, or does it POP now!

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Watercolour time

When they all want the wellie boot!

Above the waves

Watercolour/Gouche

~ This was painted on a postcard ~

I sent it to a friend to cheer her up after having an operation

Hope she liked it

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Another loose wet-into-wet contemp. style painting

"Sunset over the Village"

on 

Langton Aquarelle watercolour paper

The Ghost Yacht

Just throwing in something very different for me...

A Contemporary watercolour

'THE GHOST YACHT'

 

Amazing what a brush and a scraper tool can do

So there I was thinking, what shall I paint.  I had my reference photos open and have for ages thought about capturing one in particular....this one from West Bay in Dorset.

But how to tackle it without it being very standard, neat and actually end up with no character to the art.  So I went for loose and free.

As you see I completely changed the colour of the sand cliffs and it took  on a whole new life.

I used a large brush to apply splats (yes, I said Splats) of paint and then used one of these,

A very technical tool, a cut up plastic card, which I literally scraped across the wet paint I had applied.  I did that very randomly and the end result was the painting above.

Watercolour cherries

The cherries in my previous post set me off.  I always find them fun to paint and did this on a post card....

Watercolour view

Inspired from our walk, see my previous post when we visited Carmarthenshire, I painted this little watercolour.  It will always remind me of our visit.

Watercolour WIP

I started this as a Work in Progress, but only added it to Facebook.  Incidentally although I have the Sketching William fb page, I also have one for my sketches/paintings called Ann The Sketcher - it's my way of keeping the William sketches completely separate.

Anyhoos, back to the point of this post.  The work in progress started like this -

again, using the Saunders Waterford spiral pad.  As you see I splashed on lots of colours here and there.  A little kitchen roll at the top took out the clouds.  All added on pre-wet paper, so lots of fun dropping the colours in. 

When this totally and completely dried I added some detail and the final sketch ends up like this:

'Resting by the estuary'

This sketchbook is proving very useful, 

I'm using this technique to

experiment in readiness for

future paintings to be framed.

Watercolour Doodle

I don't like wasting paper, who does, so when I had a page of watercolour paper left over in my Daler-Rowney pad, I thought this was a chance to just doodle.  Instead of using pencil or pens I used watercolours.

This is how it ended up...

It did make for a good exercise in washes

as well as a fun doodle

(I have linked to Paint Party Friday today)

A seaside shell in watercolour

Inspiration comes so simply sometimes.  This one was of a lovely shell we found on Saunton Sands beach a few days ago. ..   (also mentioned on Williams blog here).

I started out with a very fine pencil outline, just a guide really.  Then a simple wash of colour using

Yellow Ochre - which I also spread around for eventual background

and whilst wet dropped in a little Burnt Umber on the parts I knew would eventually need more shading

when this had dried I then added more Burnt Umber with a little Raw Umber here and there -
this is where more detail is also brought in to show the patterns on the shell -
I also lifted a little colour on the top of the shell with just clear water and a tissue for the highlights

and a mix of Ultramarine Blue with Burnt Sienna mixed together for the base shadow - using clear water to fade it out slightly.  I then used a spattering technique for texture.....

and there you have it

A loose impressionist style Shell

Happy Painting everyone!