Cows near Farnham

I went out properly plein air watercolour sketching yesterday, yippee, which apart from losing the dog for an hour, felt really good. I thought I'd chance going out with the oil paints today, but it's rainy and horrid. I wanted to do something though, it's been sooo long, so I rooted through my photos.

 

I'm not too unhappy with this. It is bigish, as in 30 x 25cm, so it took heaps of concentration. I was at it about two and a half hours, all of which was accompanied by Radio 4 iplayer which is  utterly utterly fab. I'm all smug actually, as I painted a pic I don't think is too  awful, I caught up on a few hours of history programs , and also had a big savoury brioche rising while I was painting. I've now  got a painting plus a huge warm Parma ham, mozzarella and basil loaf plus a bottle of white, plus it's Friday - what more could you ask for.

I'll look at the pic again tomorrow and poke at it, but for now, I'm staying with mildly smug, or at least, just kind of pleased.

Exam over!

That's it, all done, exam finished, course finished,I am no longer a student! I am back to being a housewife :-/ Results should be sometime in August, and unless I have done something utterly daft, I should have a history degree! If I have managed to flunk things it will be because I spent the evening before the exam drinking a bottle of wine and drawing my shoes.

 

This is only my second pair of Docs since I was about 17, they last and last.

This is an attempt to catch the gorgeous effect of looking out on the ( white) wisteria in full blossom at this time of year. The lines are a bit all over the place.

 

 

I was getting bit bored with looking into the veg box, so I upended the box and put the veg on top.

 

I've got to manically catch up on house and garden, Moms coming tomorrow for a week, then after that, I'll really have to root out the oil paints and see if I have a notion what to do with the things.

sketchpad issues

I've only one brush for sketching, and it's cheap and fake, and I'm using it on a cheap and basic sketchpad. In a fit of fullofmyselfness, I decided I'd do so much better with some good quality  materials, so I  went off and treated myself to a Moleskin watercolour sketch pad. I hate it!!

 

The format is long and narrow, which is probably perfect for sweeping landscapes, but not so great for the shed in Dorset. But the main issue is that you can't at all seem to lift colour. Once it's on, it's on. I'd have liked to lighten/brighten the deck to the left of the shed, and pulled a bit of paint out of the shrubs, but it's ever so permanent.

I think it has made for a duller veg box as well, I'd have liked to lighten the asparagus:

 

 

 

 But on the up side, the study avoidance is going well:

 

 

I seem to have ferociously knobbly feet.

 

 

Lovely lovely weather,  I'm dawdling a bit too much time away on the patio.