Angel , Brookwood Cemetery

 I had great notions that when I finally finished studying and the hols started that I'd have all the time in the world to paint, getting in days and days of much needed practice. Well so much for that. Instead the hols have been spent with my girls, we've had outings, trips, days in , days out, and lovely though it has all has been, I've hardly managed to grab a couple of hours to paint at all until now.

In an effort to kill two birds with one stone, i.e get in some sketching time and have a day out with my daughters, I brought them a cemetery, like you do. We went to Brookwood, It's a wonderful place, one of the largest cemeteries in Europe I think. It is vast and very beautiful to walk around in, with a strange mixture of wilderness and order. I love the old part with the angels and ferns,  and crumbling mausoleums, and graves part lost in the Rhododendrons and meadows with wildflowers. There was a butterfly collector swishing his net through the grasses while we were there. I sat and sketched while the girls explored.

This was done sitting in shorts on the most itchy grass ever, with ants. I know if you are being arty you are supposed to say that you worked up the painting from sketches done on location. I'm not entirely sure I saw the connection between the sketching and the painting, I saw utterly different colours while sketching. Although being there does make you more aware of bounced up light than photos seem to.

The gaps between painting efforts are too long, what is being learnt is being lost again I think.