Watercolour Landscape Castiglion Fiorentino

26cm x 36cm watercolour on CP paper

The only watercolour I've painted since I started my Printmaking course.

As a number of other Bloggers have noted it's jolly hard to photograph paintings in the winter light. When I go for the highlights I lose the sky detail, so it looks a little duller here than it actually is.

Monoprints - Skeleton Leaves

Monoprint 9cm x 9cm

These are the last of my monoprints for the time being.

Monoprint 9cm x 9cm

Monoprint 9cm x 9cm

Helen

My darling daughter was here for a few moments it seems. Now she is on the other side of the world again and I miss her madly.

Now I'm off to throw my hard ground etching into an acid bath. Fingers crossed.

Monoprints Umbrella Pines

Three Pines - Monoprint 13cm x 13cm

Three Pines 1 - monoprint 24.5cm x 24.5cm

These are a couple of my early early monoprints. I enjoyed the process but have a long way to go. I'm still working on my first hard ground etching. I'm hoping to get it going again now I'm (hopefully) over this virus.

Rick keeps a neat studio.

I'd really love to have this at home.

Studio actually has a lovely view out over the valley but I'll save that for another day.

Local Colour - Final Pages

The Flying Pictures International Sketchbook Exchange is almost over. A couple of sketchbooks, including mine, still have to finish their journey. Casey's book Local Colour is now available as a slide show on the Flying Pictures Blog. These are my sketches which were the final pages of Casey's book.

The garden chair where I photographed many of the books.

Casey's book ready to fly home to France.

The sketchbook exchange has really challenged me and I've tried a great many different styles and approaches, some more successful than others. I'm so grateful for all the enthusiasm and encouraging comments from so many of you who visit my blog. Thank you.

I was constantly inspired by the beautiful and imaginative work of my fellow Flyers and even though this project has been much more demanding than I imagined, I can't wait to fasten my seatbelt again for another creative adventure with the Flying Pictures Crew.

Vivien and Lindsay have now also created slideshows of their finished books.

Printmaking Adventure

Linocut 10cmx10cm

Apart from the Flying Pictures Sketchbook Exchange, I haven't been doing a lot of sketching lately because a few weeks ago I started a three month printmaking workshop. I found a wonderful teacher, Rick Woodbury with a beautiful studio right here in Castiglion Fiorentino. I couldn't believe my luck! Then I had to wait for more than a year for Rick to fit me into a workshop. I couldn't have wished for a better opportunity as the rest of the group is made up of American university students here at the Santa Chiara School for a semester studying art and architecture. They are keeping me on my toes!

I'm going to post all my efforts from the beginning in the hope that it will be a record of my evolving skill.

First of all we tackled monoprints.

The lesson I learned from the last two prints was that if I am going to experiment, it's a good idea to experiment on proper paper. I have a tendency to over-ink my plates, so Rick suggested I make a second print from the same plate. I used a piece of scrap newsprint (notice the text) and, of course, ended up liking this second print best.

I have some more monoprints to post but I have now moved on to drypoint and hardground etching which I think better suits my desire to draw.

The little snail at the top of this post was my first effort at linocut where I've had access to a decent press. I've since made a whole series in different colours.