Some summer sketches

Well I have been painting, but I've been painting the exterior woodwork on the house which is no fun whatsoever. I did a rubbish job on it anyway, and managed to get impossible to remove paint on legs, shorts, dog, path and plants. I've been keeping up sketching though and have finished pad number 3. Ta Da. That's the end of the Moleskin. The long format didn't suit me, although, it was okay for this foxglove:

 

I need to leave home more often, I've been sketching looking out of doors and windows:

 

 

And I've been sketching bits of rooms:

 

 

And I've been sketching any flowers in the garden:

 

I get a bit fiddly and faffy too easily, so sometimes I have to try and force myself to be looser:

 

I've given one of my daughters some watercolours, so she was sitting out in the garden sketching with me last night, while my other daughter was out there reading with us. Nice way to spend an evening.

 

 

 

 

 

Cows in fields behind Elstead

We pass a couple of fields of cows often on our morning walks, and at that time of the day they are hanging around obligingly close to the path . Three times now I have hauled myself, the dog and my watercolour stuff to the fields later in the day to sketch them, and each time they have been huddled at the far far farthest edge of the field and have been undrawable. Rotters. I've taken lots of zoom pics instead.

 

I'll get around to sketching them sometime, but I have no idea how you would go about painting them on location. I'm sure by the time I've sorted a colour out , or cleaned a brush, they would have ambled off elsewhere.

I've not really tried bushes and trees before, I was squinting so much I think I was doing it with my eyes shut. As a technique, this has some very obvious limitations.

Water lilies

I hate it when you manage to make time and really really want to get painting, and then have no notion what on earth to paint. I wasted so much time thinking about it, and then just decided quickly pick a photo and quit faffing.  This was taken last week in the woods up the road from us.

 

I'm loving the act of painting, I love the mixing and applying the paint and the concentrating. And I'm loving just learning. The end result isn't of real importance at the moment, so I don't know why I waste time over subject matter. Daft really.

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.

 

 

 

Another week of studying and sketching

I'm one page off finishing another sketchbook - again, rather absurdly pleased with that. I have decided the oil paints have to stay packed away until after my exam, otherwise I think I'd be painting under pressure rather than for pleasure. In the mean time, the veg boxes keep coming.

 

Even though I thought I was aware of seasonality etc, recording the boxes makes you very aware of the changes. Things have gotten a lot more colourful for one thing.

 

 

 

Sometimes I just want to fit in a sketch, but can't for the life of me find anything interesting to draw.

Hence, some of the shoes in the hall.

 

 

And a Rhododendron, there is a big bush of these in full blousy blossom in the garden at the moment.