LADIES THURSDAY GROUP

My Thursday afternoon meetings continue with the five ladies invited attending as and when they can. This week there was just Helen and Maggie working with me, so we had fun.

I continued with a sketch I had done the previous day with my Stabilo brown fineliner soluble pen on quattro square block watercolour. It was of a local Gardens during the summer with one of their wired sculptures. This time a heron by the water. My visitors were surprised to see me use both a water spray to dampen the washes and then add ground salt crystals to create the effect you can see mainly in the left hand side foliage. Needless to say, it is nowhere near completed.

Maggie fell for my two little Christmas robin ornaments I had set by the side of a cyclamen plant in a basket. She added the logs from her imagination and I've promised to turn them into Christmas cards for her with my computer and Publisher software.

Helen brought along three works that had never been fully completed and we discussed what they needed. There was an acrylic landscape with poppies in a field which she felt had too strong a green in the distant fields. A watercolour of tulips in one of my square vases that needed anchoring with the use of a shadow at the base and also some darks into the foliage and petals helped bring it more 3D and alive. The third one was of a Yorkshsire cottage she staid at on holiday that just needed some attention to the pathway to the door. Then in the last 15 minutes or so she just got out a size 10 brush some green and red watercolours and created this lovely study of the cyclamen - adding some salt to the leaves whilst they were still wet. All without any initial drawing. Charming.

I thoughoughly enjoyed our afternoon together - our work encouraged along by music playing and tea and coconut macaroons dipped in chocolate.

FEET AND HANDS

I thought I might practice sketching hands and feet and with the Italian trip in mind I started with my Sistene Chapel book and inevitably went to the famous God creating Adam Michelangelo painting on the ceiling.

Then I checked out lots of feet from various scenes in the chapel and came up with this selection

from angels, sibyls and prophets:

Then at the weekend on the front cover of the Telegraph Magazine was this photo of Elton John using his hands to speak! Simply had to have a try:

All done with my latest favourite Stabilo Brown (45) fine liner with water and a little Schmincke watercolour.

AUTUMN LEAVES

Philippa and Maggie joined me yesterday afternoon for a session of sketching and painting . Prior to their arrival I walked down to the river and along the common to collect some of the glorious autumn leaves from oak trees, sycamore, beech and others. Here are a selection of leaves I chose to paint - I am afraid they have scanned rather darker than they really are


.... and here are my watercolour interpretations sketched into my garden flower sketch book labelled 'Autumn leaves from my village' as I did not have such a variety in my own garden. I used the Daniel Smith palette that still seems to be going on and on, having put down the shapes with a water soluble graphite pencil.



Hope you are also enjoying this wonderful natural display of colours.

FIGURES FROM THE SISTENE CHAPEL CEILING

Still working on practice sketches for my Italian visit, I went to my wonderful full colour plate book MICHELANGELO - THE FRESCOES OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL which I purchased a few years back at a local library sale. I was hooked when I came to the chapter on SEERS - ie prophets and sibyls. So began a series of watercolour and pen sketches using my Daniel Smith paints and Lamy pen with noodlers Lexington grey ink. Here are three efforts:

Jeremiah - lost in thought

I think the hands are a bit big but pleased with all the colours I managed to put into the flesh.


The Libyan Sibyl

Afraid she has turned out rather masculine and squashed at the top of the sketchbook page.


Zechariah - the Hebrew Prophet

This, in fact, was my first one and as you can see the head is too small. Well! its only practice and I have not done figures for ages.

To be continued at some stage.

29th WORLD WIDE SKETCH CRAWL

Anita came for the weekend and we spent sketchcrawl day at Norwich Cathedral.
Must confess this little sketch of the spire is from a photo I took whilst popping outside
when the sun broke through.............


... so while it was sunny we found a bench and I chose these two diverse buildings in the cathedral grounds. I think the one on the left is the chapel and assume the dutch architectured white house is the home of someone who works in the cathedral - lucky family.........



By the time we were frozen through with a cold wind blowing up, we dashed back to the restaurant for lunch where, when we arrived around 11 am , we had gone straight for latte and cake before beginning our endeavours. Here's part of our table 14..............


........... and by 3.30 we were in the cloisters sitting in the sun trying to understand the intricate design of one of the archways....

A good fun day and thankfully Clive had kindly offered to cook his famous meatballs and tagliatelli for dinner. So we got home in plenty of time for a little sip of alcohol before settling down round the dining table.

STABILO SOLUBLE FINELINER PENS

I am certain you will have read that I am going on holiday to Italy next May with Anita sketching in a number of cities on a tour . Ever since our booking, I have been practicing buildings and people from DVD's and holiday brochures in different media trying to find a particular technique and materials I would like to take with me.

I have my Lamy cartridge pen with Noodlers Lexington grey ink I thought would do beautifully with overwashes of watercolour, but realised well into producing a series of work from my book on the Sistene Chapel that I actually needed soluble ink. So last night, the last evening of Anita's visit, we set up a still life and I tried out my set of stabilo pens to see which bled the most. It turned out that the result was dependent on the paper used. This made me realise why my sketches the previous day in Norwich cathedral for the 29th sketch crawl with Anita came out so pale - it was the paper in the Derwent Journal bound with soft caramel coloured suede effect I had taken for the day. (I'll post these another time - probably via Flickr which I opened an account with this weekend with the guidance of Anita).

So here is the result in a watercolour book of the still life using the brown (45) stabilo fine liner and Daniel Smith watercolour washes.

... and a close up in case the full image does not enlarge so you can see how lovely the ink bleeds into the washes at the drawn line edges. :

NANNY'S GARDEN POEM

Nanny's garden - a beautiful place

Like a dream

Like a fairytale

It brightens the day

It brightens our way

The sun upon nanny's garden

This little verse was written by my youngest grand daughter (aged 11 yrs) when she and her sister stayed with us for a weekend recently. Elisha has always liked 'playing' with figures and words and we often make up games together. This time it was to give her a title and for her to produce a few lines in less than 5 minutes. We happen to be sitting in the sun room when I mentioned my garden and out popped these wonderful words in no time at all.

We had some magic this past week or two as I had almost given up on my planted cosmos that just seem to grow taller and taller as the summer came and went and could almost be entered into the Guineas book of records for their giant height. Not until now in October have they decided to bloom - three colours and at least thirty blooms out all at once with many a bud awaiting. So here's a couple of photos, both taken through my bedroom window. In one you can just see the village church down the hill over the rooftops.

Elisha nearly broke my heart when she wrote the following for the subject of family:

Family are forever

Family stay together

We love

We care

The sky never dull

The sky always bright

We see brightness

We see darkness

but whatever happens

we stay together.

Unusual posting but just had to share them with you. Hope Elisha doesn't mind.