EDM 112 - Draw Something Fresh

Fresh Peas from our garden

If one gets out of step with the EDiM Challenge as I just have, it's a struggle to catch up.

HWEM would be quick to point out that while he was sweating it out under the Umbrian sun helping establish a vegetable garden near Todi (see previous post), I was sitting in the shade with Dermott, sketching. Well I was sketching, Dermott was enjoying the change of scene.

Pigma Micron pen and watercolour in Strathmore Watercolour Journal

The farmer on the hillside below was cutting hay all day. The birds and I were delighted!

Iris Watercolour

Irises 6x6" watercolour

This painting of irises is an exercise in working with the brush without benefit of a preliminary pencil sketch. I surprised myself and have built a little confidence for the future.

Out and About Sketches

Here are a few recent sketches. My heart isn't in it at present and I've been greatly tempted to tear pages out of sketchbooks. Posting them here will keep me honest :)

Black Fig - watercolour

watercolour on HP paper

Finally the black figs are ripe. Black figs with Gorgonzola - YUM!

Petunias Linoprint

Petunias - linoprint image 15cm x 17cm
paper 28cm x 28cm

I've just finished a companion linoprint of Petunias to go with my earlier Cyclamen print.

Detail Petunias Print

I planted these magenta petunias last September prior to my daughter coming to visit. They flowered in boxes on our tiny bridge well into the winter. About to throw them away in the early spring, I noticed a tiny leaf amongst the dead brown stems. I chopped them right back and left them in the garden with no great expectations and couldn't have been more delighted when they re-bloomed and now they are just as abundant as there were last year. Maybe I'm finally developing a green thumb - or it could just be a spot of paint!

Raspberries Graphite Sketch

2B mechanical pencil

Our raspberries are fruiting so I thought I should drop everything and make a quick sketch. I've decided drawing in graphite is a bit like golf - if you haven't done it for a while your body quickly loses its skill. This is my first graphite drawing for quite a while and if I'd realised I was going to get caught up in it I'd have worked on better paper instead of my 'cheap' sketchbook. I really do need to practice more leaves.

I've just had the luck and pleasure of meeting the delightful Margaret Saul, a wonderful botanic artist and teacher who has come to live in Tuscany. Margaret is planning a special program here next year. A wonderful opportunity!

Passion Flower in Watercolour

Passion Flower - Watercolour on Arches HP paper

The passion flowers are blooming in the garden and because they have such a beautifully engineered structure I decided to sketch one. I then decided to try one in watercolour. It was a battle and I think the passion flower won.

I've been so intrigued watching the way the blooms open and close. They don't seem to just wither and die like a lot of flowers but close up like an umbrella in reverse and then bring their outside leaves back over into their original bud form. Amazing.

Graphite sketch

Coloured pencils might be a better medium to capture the delicate geometric form. It could become a long-term passion trying to capture the perfection of these flowers.

Look out America, the Fiats are Coming!

Fiat 500s passing under my window. They might be small but they're feisty.

And there's more where those came from!

You'll love the new model.

Meantime I'm still trying to make quick, spirited sketches (and wishing I had a Cinquecento)

Borage Watercolour

Watercolour 6" x 4"

I found a beautiful prickly blue plant on my morning walk and had to ask Jean to identify it. Now I know it's Borage and can be eaten and drunk with great benefits to one's health. This little piece is still happily flowering in a vase on my desk after three days. I'm going to see if I can relocate some to our garden.

Instead of doing so many small paintings in my sketchbooks, I'm now experimenting with postcard size pieces of watercolour paper. The better ones can then be framed, posted, sold or given away without destroying a sketchbook. The bad ones also won't destroy a sketchbook! It's a lovely format. Trouble is I mistook a piece of printmaking paper for HP watercolour paper so it was too absorbant and the watercolour (above) doesn't have it's usual sparkle. What I'd really love is some Arches HP paper which I can't find here.

Since the good weather has arrived, instead of staying in bed with my laptop, I'm now out the door at 7.30am and totally enchanted by these beautiful mornings in the Tuscan countryside.

Poppies in the Olive Groves

La Collegiata

Cyclamen Relief Print

Cyclamen Relief Print 15 x 17 cm

I'm going to stop being a snob about art materials. I recently bought some Japanese Relief Printing Vinyl from Intaglio Printmaker in London but was really expecting it not to be as good as traditional lino. I thought it would probably look like a rubber stamp. Guess what? It cut like butter. I was able to make much finer and sharper marks than I can in lino. My tools kept their edge. It took the oil-based etching ink like a dream. Finally, I was able to run it through the etching press without using tracks. It prints the ink as smooth as velvet. I guess you can tell I'm sold. Now I need a purist to tell me if I can still call this a lino print.

Japanese relief printing vinyl - double sided.

The vinyl block has a black core which makes it very easy to see the progress of the cutting.

Printed on Magnani paper

Print with model

We've had three pots of cyclamen miraculously blooming on our kitchen windowsill right through winter. The windowsill never gets any sun. Nothing else wants to live there. As Spring arrived so did a pigeon that proceeded to decapitate every single bloom on the red cyclamen. We removed it. The pigeon started on the pink flowers. He/she seemed just to be dropping the blooms on the ground two storeys below. Then I started finding them under the building opposite where the pigeons roost in the roof. I still don't know if the flowers were being used in a courting ritual, for nest decoration, food or whether it is a wilful act of vandalism. Does anyone know?

We gave in finally and moved the surviving plants to the garden terrace where I sketched them for the relief print.

Iris Woodcut Print with Watercolour

Irises woodcut print hand coloured with watercolour

If you think you have just had a touch of deja vou it's because I was so unhappy with the photographs of my prints in the previous post I've deleted the post and started again, this time scanning my images.

Above is a woodcut print I have hand coloured with watercolour. Below is the one I posted yesterday, hand coloured with gouache.

Woodcut print with gouache

I'm happy with both for different reasons. I really like the flat colour field one can achieve with gouache, much as it would be if the colours were printed rather than painted. This is the style of printmaker Margaret Preston whom I greatly admire.

Now I'd like to know what you think.

Irises Woodcut Print

Irises woodcut print 15 x 24cms

Since our irises aren't out yet, I used a couple of my photos from last spring and a watercolour sketch as references to draw these irises. Next I plan to hand colour one of the prints.

Lucignano Sketches Pen & Watercolour

Pen & watercolour - Moleskine watercolour sketchbook

Yesterday was a perfect day - warm sunshine chasing away the winter chill, lunch with delightful friends at a great restaurant in Lucignano, one of the prettiest little Tuscan hill-top towns, and I managed two sketches!

Pen & watercolour - Moleskine WC sketchbook

Tulip Oil Painting

Tulip 18 x 24cm oil on board

Our Wednesday afternoon oil painting group has reconvened after the summer. I'd been working on the tulip painting before the break and it languished in my studio all Summer. I did get bored looking at it. Apart from varnish, it's now finished and I face my usual problem - where to sign it. I always think my signature spoils the painting.

I took the photo of these way back at the beginning of the year and if it looks familiar it's because I did an earlier study in watercolour pencil, posted here.

Fritillary in Coloured Pencil

Fritillary Snake's Head
Derwent Inktense Pencils on grey paper

It's a year since I've sketched anything in my little multicoloured Fabriano Artist's Journal. I had resolved to use it to record everything that bloomed in our garden. Well the garden's blooming away and I'm way, way behind! I have painted a few flowers since but usually in watercolour sketchbooks.

I bought a tin of 12 Derwent Inktense pencils quite a while ago because so many people love them. I've hardly touched them since because they always look so gaudy to me when I add water. I was so disappointed in the sketch above I was really regretting that it was in my garden journal. I think I've rescued it slightly by adding some touches of white gouache.

Does anyone else have reservations about these pencils, or is it just me?

Inside Story - FP Sketchbook Exchange

I sent off my handmade FlyingPictures concertina sketchbook, Different Strokes on Monday. It's now arrived safely in Casey's studio in France.



This has been the most beautiful Spring for wildflowers since we moved to Tuscany. I painted them in an olive grove outside the village, then added detail of the flowers.



I felt the painting turned out a bit too much like a chocolate box illustration but it's a weakness of mine, not knowing what to leave out. The bee was an attempt to show I'm not taking myself too seriously!



The book is 18 x 26 cm and I started it with 300gm HP watercolour paper. It is up to each artist in the exchange to choose the paper for the pages they add. The cover is a chocolate brown embossed paper. The bookmark lists the artists and their location.



Now it's over to Casey. I can't wait to see what she brings to Different Strokes.

Tulip Revival

Watercolour - 13 x 21cm HP Fabriano

I love a survival story. After I finished sketching my fallen tulip yesterday I was about to toss her in the compost. She was so limp, having been lying in the garden for ages and then on my desk in the hot sun for most of the day. Something made me pop her into the jar of water on my desk. This morning I found her bright and perky and ready to rock. Amazing.

I'm not as happy with this painting and I'm aware it has some awful anatomical errors but I thought the girl deserved another outing for sheer survival spirit.

Fallen Tulip

Fallen Tulip - 18 x 24cm Watercolour - Clairefontaine Sketchbook

One of the red tulips in the garden was broken off overnight so I put off the dreaded weeding to paint it this morning. It reminded me of a girl in a red satin dress who had danced too long at the ball and finally collapsed.

Red Shine Lily-flowered Tulips still standing

This is the first year I've planted tulips and I can't bring myself to cut them for the house or for art. I just take endless photographs when, in fact, I should be sketching and painting them.

I haven't been at all diligent about keeping up my Garden Journal sketchbook, but everything is photographed as it blooms. The other day I decided to start a new blog Our Tuscan Garden as a place to post these photos and tell the story of our experience making a garden in Tuscany.

I was very pleased that the title was available and very distressed when Blogger shortly after locked me out of my new blog. Days later the powers that be at Blogger have had time to check and have decided it isn't all spam.

The story begins at the beginning so it's going to take quite a few posts to bring our garden story up to the present day. I will continue to post my paintings from the garden here as well as on the other blog.

Now I really must get stuck into the weeding!

First Tulips

Watercolour Pencil & background wash 15 x 15 cms

I'll always associate tulips with our friends Jani and Louis. This is from yet another beautiful bunch they've given us. I've been sketching and photographing them all week.

The first big pencil sketch was a disaster so I decided to try a detail in watercolour pencil. This Cartiera Magnani drawing paper quickly started to scuff under the sharp pencils so I knew I wasn't going to be able to build up a multi-layered dark pencil background. I used a neutral tint watercolour wash instead, so I guess this is now mixed media.

The tulip bulbs we've planted are now coming up in the garden. I love this time of year, so full of promise.

Pen and Ink

Mont Blanc fountain pen & Pelikan Brilliant Brown ink
large Moleskine sketchbook

I wanted to paint a huge beautiful vase of lilies given to me by L & J. I managed to sketch three of them and then, because I've just bought Jos A Smith's The Pen and Ink Book, I decided to practice making clean bold lines with my pen. I used white gouache for highlights. White ink (as suggested by Mr Smith) would have given me a better contrast.

I've been tagged - again - twice! I'm really touched that the tags came from two artists whose work I greatly admire - Anita Murphy and Jeanette Jobson. Thank you :)

Last time I was tagged I gave far too much away so I'm not going to link back to that! I have to reveal seven things you don't know about me.

1. One of my ears sticks out more than the other.

2. I have two cigarette burns in my favourite Helmut Lang coat.

3. I gave up smoking February 21, 2001

4. I wear my favourite clothes forever

5. I like to eat sweetened condensed milk from the tube. (I gave that up too but I'd still like it).

6. I have a weakness for cashmere

7. I darn the moth holes in my cashmere now I don't work.

I am tagging the following:

Sognatrice from Bleeding Espresso - and other little known side effects of moving to Italy because I really enjoy her writing and because she is so entertaining about her new life in Italy.

Liz Patterson who has an enviable collection of pitchers (I call them jugs) and features them in beautiful sill life paintings.

Joan Y for her stunning drawings of nature.

Joan of Watercolors by Joan for her lovely watercolour landscapes and the inspiration she provides by constantly painting. I think she's currently sketching in Spain.

Finally Dermott of I am dog, hear me snore in order to distract him from rubbing up against the lounge and to get stuck into some writing.

Finally a little watercolour exercise from my class last week.

Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook