paintings prints and stuff

I wish I could find my tin of Caran d'Ache - I was reminded of them recently when I was looking through some sketchbooks. I'd like to dig them out and use them again but simply can't think where I've 'safely' put them . I was out sketching trees with a friend and did these of some birch tree trunks - I think the eyes are created when a branch is broken off or eaten by the deer? rabbits? - these particular trees were really quite spooky as the more you drew the more you were aware of these eyes all over them - watching! I haven't exaggerated them - this is really how they are. At first sight I thought the Caran d'Ache would be a bit bright and unsubtle - but they are really lovely to use and you can get subtle colour mixes and washes. They are water soluble and look at first sight like childrens wax crayons, chunky and suitable for working on a large scale. This sketch book was an A4 - about 11x8.5 inches or something close to that. I want to find them t...

Todays trip to London was great First was the Mall Galleries and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours - an exhibition of contemporary watercolours. We met up with Katherine again. Watercolour here includes acrylics and gouache and there was a great deal of mixed media work involving charcoal or pastel or oil pastel, ink or pencil. No hard and fast rules to stifle creativity here :) Unfortunately they have no web site so it isn't possible to link here to images that were in the exhibition but where I can I've given links to see other work by artists I liked. The work was wonderfully varied - from the super realism of Janet Skea, incredible paintings showing every fibre in fabrics, simple arrangements of delicate objects in a limited colour range, creating subtle and beautiful finished pieces, quiet and contemplative; to the luscious abstract paintings of Morocco by Leslie Goodwin, again with a severely limited palette but this time freely and boldy painted with the ad...

I should be doing lots of things instead but I wanted to draw - so I did :) ... and now I have to face the dirty dishes, pile of washing and tidying up :( I did this from a combination of the sketches I did on the beach at sunset and memory. I've done a series of works from those sketches - in oil, pastel and digital images. It was interesting to see just how intense and dark it's possible to go with coloured pencils. I think they hold up well in comparison with other media. I'm speeding up with them and can now imagine sketching more with them plein air. I think they'll feature more often in my sketchbooks in the future. It was done with a mix of Polychromos, Lyra and cheapo Tescos coloured pencils and one Derwent. I like the heavier waxier Polychromos and Lyra - in future I'll know which to go for. Luckily I took the advice of expert CP users and bought quite a few polychromos - the Derwent is an old one, though it's good I don't like it...

image: Kurt Jackson I mentioned yesterday that KJ has a new book out, with his paintings of the Thames, from its source to the sea. They look amazing . I've treated myself to the book and can't wait for it to arrive :D Another book on my ' want' list is the one with his paintings of Cornish hedgerows. Do take a look. This is one example, not my favourite as a painting, but very typical of the quantity of flowers. Cornish hedges are something very special. They aren't simple hawthorn+ hedges like a lot of the country but high stone walls with earth banked up and they are a mass of wild flowers, Do read the description of them on the page with the paintings. It explains them perfectly. http://www.kurtjackson.co.uk/Kurt_jackson_exhibition_the_cornish_hedge.htm In Spring they are full of primroses, bluebells, wild garlic, campion and more. I lived in Cornwall as a child and loved them. The lanes are narrow, often only one car wide so they are 'up close and person...

I've got some very cheap charcoal pencils that I bought - a dozen for £1 ! - they are a bit waxier than a true charcoal pencil but I rather like them. They don't smudge quite the same as a true charcoal pencil. Some charcoal pencils can be a little scratchy and I don't enjoy using them. These are definitely not, they create lovely rich blacks. This is a very quick sketch trying them out in the moleskine - the slight waxiness means that though normal charcoal doesn't work at all with the slightly waxy feeling paper, these do. I considered sketching the tree in last Wednesday's post again yesterday, as I left work, as the leaves were now partly open and it was a haze of spring green, blowing in the icy gale from the north .......... which made me decide not to stop! Kurt Jackson did a long series of small sketches of a little hawthorn tree. He took his daughter to her ballet lesson and didn't have time to go home before picking her up again - so he looked at t...

I knew that people had said that moleskines didn't take watercolour - but I had to find out for myself :>) I started off with a rough pencil sketch of a marsh harbour at Brancaster Staithe from the small moor on the hill above. It's a tiny area but real moorland with gorse and bracken and rocks. The watercolour just rolled off its waxy surface and had to be scrubbed in quite drily to get it to stay on the paper at all! Definitely not one to try again - maybe gouache? or acrylic? Then I used coloured pencils to reinforce colours, letting some of the watercolour that 'stuck' show through. A mix of Polychromos, Lyra, Derwent and some cheap unnamed supermarket coloured pencils were used, reinforced with graphite pencil. This is a view I'd like to do in oils some time, working plein air. It was done from a photograph taken when I sketched there last year. There's a wonderful view from the moor, known as The Common, of the harbour with its islands and twisting cree...

Later in the year I need some work for an exhibtion where the subject is reflections and I wondered if it was worth looking through my photographs to see if there was anything there I would want to work from. As I've said before, I don't normally work from photos but I fancy giving it another go - I knew I had some images that I like and maybe ..... Anyway these are the images that I found quite quickly that would meet the brief. I love the coast so naturally a lot of them are to do with the sea :>) I really liked these seagulls waiting for the incoming tide on a grey afternoon. I like the subtle limited range of colours - watercolour and CP???? Watercolour and pastel? Then there is the boat lying beached on the wet mud with all the lovely sky blues in the reflection of the sky - something out of nothing. Or the boat in the harbour with the lovely old stone walls - pastel and charcoal over acrylic or watercolour? It's the busiest of the images with all the people jostli...