paintings prints and stuff

error corrected - that doorway, gouache and tinted charcoal pencil Looking at that doorway again, I realised that with talking, teaching and not paying proper attention, I'd got the proportions of that downpipe way out!  I'd been reading it as a dark piece of wall (working from a photo in the warmth  in class on this one and I doubt if I'd have been so silly if I'd been working from life, bad print on typing paper too). So .... it was a case of washing out the offending area to narrow the pipe and then adding the sliver of bricks  and matching the suggestion of the steel shutters.  Thank goodness it's easy to lift paint from the S&B paper because of its brilliant sizing.  So today's class had a demo of washing out mistakes!

(slide show - if you subscribe you'll probably just see a little icon that says get your own !) I didn't have time to sketch today but I did manage to get out with my camera to a nice spot on the edge of the city at Aylestone. You go under an old bridge carryng a disused railway line to a little car park overlooking ancient willows. A Victorian bridge takes you to the other side of the canal and looks onto the water meadows surrounding the River Biam, a tiny river, crossed by a 15th Century packhorse bridge. It's popular with walkers because you can walk for miles along the canal towpath with occasional side trips like this and you can walk or cycle into the country to the south or through the city and out the other side to the north alongside the river or canal. Marsh land was the biggest barrier to travel and trade in ancient times - rivers could be navigated or forded or crossed by bridge, but marshes were treacherous and changeable and a major problem. The website says:...