paintings prints and stuff

Tiny trainers in watercolour, coloured pencil, pencil and ballpoint pen in S&B Delta sketchbook Another sketch of my grandson's shoes. He's only 14 months so they are very little :>)    Done in my S&B Delta. A4 size.

What are your favourite sketchbooks?  Obviously this will vary enormously depending on what you want from your sketchbooks and the media used. For me the quality of the paper is crucial.   I really dislike working on flimsy paper or paper that buckles with water media.  Sketchbooks are an important part of my work, for research, plein air work, thinking around ideas and keeping notes, jotting down interesting information and simply observing and practising.  They need to cope with anything from simple pencil to watercolours, oils, charcoal, pen, pastel, collage, eyeshadow .... anything !  Some sketchbooks are 'general' and can contain a mix of subjects.  Others are themed, like books I take on trips or that work around an idea.  On the whole I prefer larger sketchbooks. A4+, but do also find smaller ones handy for keeping in the car, taking to hospital appointments etc So these are ones that I have chosen to comment on - favourites - ...

The resident panther using mind control to make me feed him .... again . He has polydactyly, an extra digit on each paw, hence that little thumb there.  Very handy for juggling mice he says. It has been a hectic summer with little painting time but that's soon to change I hope and it should get a bit more lively here.  I want to do some large drawings with the lovely XL charcoal and graphite from Derwent amongst other ideas bubbling.

  First shoes, coloured pencil and ballpoint pen in S&B Delta sketchbook A tiny size 3, my grandsons first trainers, sketched in coloured pencil and ballpoint pen.  I managed to catch time to sketch them while he had an afternoon sleep.

Porth Nanven, evening, Derwent charcoal in Stillman and Birn A4 hardback sketchbook  Another from Cornwall.  Attempting to catch the silvery dazzle of light on water.  A little stream tumbles down the Cot Valley to the beach below - Porth Nanven. The new Derwent charcoal sticks are luscious to use and there is a little of their charcoal pencil in there too.  The photo makes the horizon slope - the drawing doesn't . S&B sketchbooks are now available from Jacksons in the UK.   The Beta  paper is lovely , heavy and really well primed so that it takes any medium I choose. Epsilon and Zeta are smooth and beautiful for pen and ink work.  They will take watercolour but if you want to use a lot of  media and layers, then the others are more for you. Has anyone tried the new Derwent charcoals and graphites?  or the S&B sketchbooks?

Pendeen lighthouse sketched in watersoluble pen  A quick sketch with a Tombow water-soluble pen and a waterbrush.  Again it's in the Stillman and Birn Beta sketchbook (A4) with its lovely heavy paper. The family went for a walk along the cliffs, while I did this sketch and another looking down on the sea seething round the rocks below, which I'll show next time. It's a place I've sketched before in watercolour mixed media - see below ...   Each time the colours are different, the weather, the mood, the flowers.  As a child, living further north in Cornwall, I loved those changes - each time we took the coast road and swooped up and down hills, passing another cove, the light would be different, the tide and sea swell different.    The sea changed from almost navy blue on the day above to the pearly tones of the sketch below on the following day.   On the day I did the pen sketches the wind was creating lacy skeins of foam tha...

Sunset at Sennen Cove, oil on deep sided canvas, 12 ins square I did a series of sunsets in watercolour and oil of the sunsets and it really brought out how cameras distort the colours of sunsets and aren't really at all helpful.  The silhouetted rocks and breakwater lose all colour as well. They make beautiful pictures in their own right - but they aren't the reality of the experience at all. In the photographs, there is far more red (which there wasn't in reality) and the sun is white.   In fact , the sun was blazing red and the skies were a range of softer reds and peaches and sometimes soft yellows.   So the canvasses were done quickly while the memory of the colours was still fresh.   There were vivid pale blue ripples against the darker shadows and subtle reflections of the reds in the water.  Those electric ripples were beautiful and just didn't show properly on photos.  These are 2 examples - the actual sunset look...