Sketching wet season skies

Hello blog friends..... Wow, it's a long time since I posted. I never meant that to happen, it makes it hard to jump back in. Why now? There's nothing special to write about, but I'll just write something and hopefully get back in the habit.

One of the good things that happened last wet season was sketching regularly at the beach... For years and years I've said I want to paint the wet season clouds, skies can be so dramatic at that time of year. About 10 years ago I bought myself a beautiful moleskine A4 sketchbook for this exact purpose. Needless to say it was too beautiful to use, and is still on my shelf it's plastic wrapper unopened!!

So what made it happen this year? One thing was the terrible weather - it was relentlessly hot and humid with little rain to cool things down. Usually I go to the beach to walk, but I realised I was getting home so drained I was worn out for the rest of the day. I thought I don't have to punish myself like this! But I still wanted to go to the beach so I took my sketchbook and a chair instead!

The other thing that helped was sorting out a small sketching kit that worked for me - an aquabrush (no need for a waterpot and extra brushes) a couple of watercolour pencils and a dried up watercolour palette - I squeezed out tube watercolours onto a small palette rather than taking a big watercolour set.

I went sketching a couple of times a week from Xmas to the end of March,  and made around 30 sketches. They are tiny 10x15cm in a little cheap sketchbook. Some are good and some are not so good, and that's ok because it was really about the process; about spending time looking, about playing with watercolours a medium I rarely use, about going back again and again for another try, and in the end achieving something I'd wanted to do for a long time.

Holiday sketching

Last time I went on holiday to England - about 8 years ago - I came back with 3 sketches. This time I was determined to do better, and I  did, though I  still didn't do a lot...

I made a tiny sketch pad with pink pages. It was light to carry and I didn't feel precious about it at all. I drew with a ballpoint pen and pulled out sketches and glued them in my journal.

I did this little sketch at the cafe at Saltaire, I took a couple of photos too, and then did this version back at my Mum's, using watercolour pencils and a little bit of watercolour wash.

I also did some drawings at Mum's of the views out of the window from different rooms. It's the house I grew up in so the views although slightly changed over the years, are so familiar to me. I really wanted to make a record of them this time.

This one I drew one evening while we were watching tv, and a blazing sunset was going on outside!

I wish I had made the time to do more, photos are wonderful, but a sketch is something different, it means I've really spent time looking, and putting down the elements that are important to me - quite an emotional thing.

Terrible watercolours!!

For the past few years, every Christmas holidays I plan to go painting 'plein air'. Sometimes I have managed a couple of watercolours, one year I bought myself a beautiful moleskine book with heavy paper...which is still in the wrapping, far too daunting to use.

I have the idea of painting sunsets, storm clouds can be glorious at this time of year. But evening is the time of day when I'm low energy and have chores to do. I found that the holidays were zooming past and I hadn't done one painting. So instead of worrying about sunsets I took my paints along on my morning walks. I did these 2 quick sketcches on a windy morning at the beach.

And this one down at the park on new years day.

These are just in a normal little sketchpad, I'm using good quality paints but they seem to soak into the paper and disappear. So I bought a little watercolour pad to see what difference it would make. I did this sketch of evening clouds above my house yesterday, and the colour seems much better.

Hopefully I'll get a few more done before the kids go back to school and normal routines kick in. When I think about going painting I imagine doing something like the watercolours of Emil Nolde!!! with free brushwork and intense colour. The reality is very different, wrestling with a medium I'm not comfortable with - I like to work with line not light...

One of the blogs I follow has some gorgeous watercolours, I wish I could do some like that!! Go visit Jumie's blog and take a look :)

I hope your new year has started well. Best wishes to all.

in progress

I don't have much to show you at the moment!! The lino from last week is almost ready to print, I've also started some sewing for the animal theme exhibition but I suppose I should keep them under my hat until exhibition time - late June.

I did another attempt at the horse painting and have been sitting looking at it for a couple of weeks and hate it as much as the first version!! So I'll be gessoing over it today.

A good spin off from doing the walking project is to be doing some sketching, either on the spot

or from my photos.

I'm hoping to do a lino cut based on the dog drawings and photos.
Hope you're enjoying a relaxing long weekend!!