Ponte Vecchio Sketch

Ponte Vecchio Shops

As always I took my sketching gear to Florence last week.  As always I spent more time in art shops than actually making art.

I did manage to take a few photos so today I pretended I'd actually taken my sketchbook out on the Ponte Vecchio.  Working from the computer screen I attempted to keep the sketch as loose at it would have been sketched on location.  I restricted myself to my new tiny W&N Field Box full of colours I don't normally have in my palette and making do with the tiny container of water.  Obviously I'm in training for the summer!

The actual sketch was done with my 'new' vintage Italian Omas Extra desk pen that is around the same age as HWEM!  If you are ever in Florence my favourite pen shop, Casa della Stilografica is worth a visit.

Super flexible gold nib from the days when Omas made their own.

Omas Extra

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

Sketching Birds in Watercolour

Robin - watercolour & mapping pen

With both Katherine Making a Mark and Toni A Spattering painting and drawing beautiful bird studies from their own photographs, I have been very envious. My friend Catherine in Dorset has a new camera with a very long lens (as well as being taller than I) so I begged her to point it at a few birds. Bless her, she did!

Spotted Woodpecker - watercolour & mapping pen

In an effort to loosen up my watercolours I sketched these birds with a brush and added a few touches of ink at the end. It really does stop me fiddling and I'm quite pleased with the results. I'm going to leave my pencil at home and try this approach with some other subjects.

In Florence in December I stood and froze trying to sketch the Ponte Vecchio amongst a crowd of tourists. I was using my fountain pen and waterbrush loaded with an ink wash. Apart from the humiliation of not being able to draw a straight line in public, I wish I'd tried the watercolour brush painting approach. Maybe next time, when my teeth aren't chattering. I obviously don't have the Right Stuff for sketching outdoors in a northern winter. Probably my thin Australian blood.

Ponte Vecchio - Montblanc fountain pen & Pelikan Brilliant Brown ink

Pen & Ink

The house next door is about as far as I'm now prepared to venture in the cold.