EDM 121, 122, 123 Coins, Shade, Bell

Postcard for Charlene & EDM 120 Flashlight

postcard 6 x 4"
Val di Chio from Castiglion Fiorentino, Tuscany

This is the postcard I painted for Charlene Brown - 1150 Words - in Canada as part of our Sketchercise postcard exchange A Postcard from My Walk.


And of course, I have another EDiM sketch for you. Believe it or not I'm getting faster with these, which is one of the reasons the challenge is worth doing.

Painting the Tuscan Spring in Watercolour

Santa Lucia - 19 x 20 cm Moulin du Coq watercolour sketchbook

Our Wednesday afternoon painting group is venturing out now the beautiful spring weather has come to Castiglion Fiorentino. There were five of us out this Wednesday and it was such a lovely afternoon I think the group may soon start to expand.

I haven't had time to post much lately so here are a couple of other recent sketches:

Corner of the Piazza Maggiore - Bologna

We had a wonderful couple of days in Bologna to celebrate HWEM's birthday.

Road to Madonna del Bagno

The little sketch above was made near the town's recycling bins. There is beauty wherever you look.

A Postcard From My Walk

6" x 4" my watercolour postcard to Liz Steel in Australia

One of the great things for me about 2011 is a postcard exchange by our Sketchercise group. It's called A Postcard From My Walk. Each month I will paint a postcard during one of my walks and send it off to another Sketcherciser, by this time next year I will have received, in return, thirteen beautiful little original works of art from all over the world.

You can see the delightful postcard I've received from my Sydney friend, Liz Steel HERE on our official group blog.

6" x 4" my watercolour postcard to Martin Stankewitz in Germany

Both the above postcards have been a challenge in that they were painted outside here in Castiglion Fiorentino (Italy) in the winter. Roll on Spring!

None of us knows where our next postcard is coming from so that's a surprise to look forward to each month.

Many thanks to Katherine Tyrrell (Making a Mark) for creating the wonderful Sketchercise Group and to Ronell van Wyk (Africantapestry) for her dedication in getting this exchange up and running.

You can read about all the artists involved and see their postcards as they arrive HERE on A Postcard From My Walk.

Blog Birthday Watercolour Giveaway

Corso Italia, Castiglion Fiorentino 17 x 24cm

I was out bright and early this morning to make my contribution to today's Worldwide SketchCrawl. This is the main street in our little Tuscan hilltop town.

Actually I thought today was the 5th birthday of my blog but checking back I see there was a short experimental post on July 8, 2005. Anyway I thought I would celebrate five years of blogging by offering this little pen and watercolour sketch to someone who comments on my birthday post.

I was going to ask Dermott to draw the winner but he really can't be trusted so instead I will use a random number generator.

There have been a lot of blog birthday celebrations lately and it's not surprising that people do want to mark the event. I have made so many true friends and received so much support and encouragement from you all. This is my way of saying I'm truly grateful.

Your comment does not have to be fulsome in praise, just say you were here. Do comment before August 8. If your number comes up I will contact you for a postal address to mail off the painting.

Montecchio Vesponi Castle watercolour

Watercolour 20cm x 20cm

This is my second attempt at this view of Montecchio as seen from the garden of a beautiful agriturismo in the Val de Chio. Doesn't seemt to matter how I approach it, it still looks like a greeting card. Oh well, I guess that is the price one pays for living in Postcard Land.

Gouache on Terraskin stone paper

Morning Snow - Gouache on Terraskin 19.5 x 13.5cm

At the beginning of December Jeanette Jobson who blogs on Illustrated Life started testing various media on a new ground called Terraskin which is made from a crushed mineral powder held together with a non-toxic resin - effectively paper out of stone. Since Jeanette only has one tube of gouache I volunteerd to test the Terraskin as a ground for gouache.

We woke to snow this morning so I dashed out to the garden to take some photos and used one as a reference for the little painting above. The 'paper' has a beautiful soft, smooth, almost velvety surface and is quite heavy. It cuts beautifully but wouldn't tear easily. I noticed in the tests I did on a scrap that it is quite easy to lift highlights from painted areas but one has to be careful because the paint takes longer to dry than on watercolour paper and colours will run into semi dry areas. The gouache dries to a lovely smooth bright finish on this paper. I imagine it would be great for reproduction.

I'm trying very hard not to fall in love with Terraskin because I don't imagine I'm going to find it in Italy in the near future. Many, many thanks, Jeanette for your generosity in sharing some samples.

Sketching & Walking

W&N Sepia Calligraphy Ink, Montblanc pen & waterbrush

As daylight saving ended today I managed to get out of bed early enough to go for a walk. I made this sketch in a cheap book (not confident about what I would achieve) as I returned to town through the olive groves.

Drypoint etching of Dermott

I've reworked the zinc plate for the above print with a diamond tipped drypoint tool. Zinc is not as pleasing to work as copper so I don't think I will be economising in future. Anyway, as HWEM points out, there's probably a limited demand for prints of our dog with his begging bowl.

Collagraphs and Monotypes of Italian Subjects

Corso Italia Collagraph Print 14 x 22 cm

This handpulled collagraph print was developed from a sketch I made in the historic centre of our Tuscan village, Castiglion Fiorentino.

A reversed scan of my original sketch was transferred to a piece of cardboard and the outlines carved out with a sharp blade. Additional texture was made by gluing plastic net, tissue paper and pieces of scrap watercolour paper to the plate. The plate was then coated with Acrylic gloss medium and varnish and inked with black oil based etching ink. Areas of ink were wiped away before printing on C.M. Fabriano 100 percent cotton paper using an etching press.

I'm a big fan of the beautiful monotypes of Martin Stankewitz which he prints with oil paints. Since I have quite a stock of oils and have decided it's not one of my favourite mediums for painting, I got quite excited about the possibility of using up my paint for monotypes. Below is my first effort.

Venice Lagoon with San Giorgio Maggiore 8.5 x 10cm monotype

After this experiment, I'm even more excited about the potential of monotypes in oil paints. This photograph doesn't do justice to the beautiful silky finish of the paint on the paper and the result is much more painterly than I can achieve on canvas because painting onto a plexiglass plate, I don't get caught up in too much detail.

It's a lot of work for one unique print but I think I'm hooked.

Art Map

Map! is a four letter word. I'm not good with maps - well that's what HWEM* says. He says I can't read a map. He usually says this when he is sitting behind the steering wheel - going too fast - missing our turn-off!

The Christmas before last there were two identical presents under our Christmas tree. We had each bought the other a TomTom portable GPS Car Navigation System. Since we now only have one car it was obviously a last ditch attempt, on both our parts, to save our marriage.

The story has a happy ending because, even though I had warned him: 'Don't buy me anything you want yourself!', I got to take the one he bought me back to the store, where I gave the nice young Italian a bit more money, and got myself the Nikon D40x digital camera I'd really wanted.

Where is this ramble going? It's going on a ramble! Some of you will recall I joined the Sketchercise Ning a while back as one of a group of artists who like to walk for pleasure and exercise and sketch along the way. Sketchercise was created by Katherine Tyrrell of Making a Mark. Joining gave me a tremendous boost because I actually started painting little watercolours en plein air.

Recently some of the clever people at Sketchercise started posting links to Google Maps that outlined the routes they took on their walks. Ignoring the fact that map! is a four letter word, I wanted to get with the technology and make my own Google Map which would not only include the route but photos of my paintings where I painted them. Easy! Well, not exactly. It may be a problem with my Mac not having an Intel processor but I still can't post a photograph on a Google Map, so I've come up with two alternative versions.

1. A map marking the routes of my regular walks.


2. A map showing my paintings on location.


I have lost a couple of days trying to sort this out but I thought some of you with smarter computers; more technological nous; time on your hands, might like to map where you paint and sketch and share it with the world.

* HWEM - He Who Encourages Me

Chiesa della Consolazione watercolour

3"x 3" watercolour on 6"x 6" on rough 140lb paper

Santa Maria della Consolazione

After the scorching day we had yesterday, I restricted my morning walk to inside the walls of our town. I found a shady spot to sit with a nice view of the octagonal church.

This is six days in a row of walking and painting. Tomorrow I rest!

Villa with Pines - Colour Memory

3" x 3" watercolour

True colour is somewhere between these two images!

thumbnail to assist colour memory

After making a light pencil sketch on my walk this morning I discovered my paints were still on my desk at home - 4900 steps away. I decided to test my 'colour memory' as per Katherine Tyrrell's recent post on Making a Mark. I was surprisingly happy with the result - but not with attempts to photograph the painting.

Chiesa di Mammi - Watercolour Tuscany

Watercolour W&N Cotman 10" x 7" sketchbook

I took the high road for the first time today - a return trip of 5.4 Km, half of which was directly up hill! I've been walking every morning this week as usual but not sketching, so I felt I owed a sketch to our Sketchercise Ning.

The little church of Mammi (above) is high in the hills above our town. It was a demanding hike for what should have been my day of rest!

The view was certainly worth the effort though.

Castiglion Fiorentino and surrounding olive groves

Closer to home.

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.

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.

My First Art Show

May is Festival Month in Castiglion Fiorentino - Maggio Castiglionese. My Wednesday afternoon oil painting group is putting on a show as part of the cultural activities.

Needless to say I'm pretty excited, since this is the first time I've exhibited.

Unfortunately my name doesn't fit any Italian spelling pattern, so when the proofs of the poster arrived I had become Robjn. The error was noted and now the final posters have been delivered. I'm now Robin Sinclaire! I think I preferred Robjn.

Possibly I'm a victim of Botticelli's Curse. Has the master taken offence at my copy of his Primavera?

They're nice big posters.

Sketch & Some Tuscan Sun Photos

Watercolour & Lamy Pen with Sepia Ink - Moleskine WC Sketchbook

I packed my kit and head outside to sketch today. I'm a bit rusty and have a lot of trouble juggling a tin of watercolours outside and everything gets a bit wishy washy, using a water brush. Anyway Sketching Season has only just begun, there's always room for improvement. For the first time today I noticed that this little street is called Vicolo Buio - Dark Alley!

After I finished sketching, I took the long way home. Here are some photos for those of you who'd like to share my walk.

Castiglion Fiorentino is currently marking the anniversary of the passage of the liberating army that fought its way though the town during WWII. This photograph is hanging in the main square (above). Can you see the bomb crater in the road on the right side of the photo? That's the town , on the hill ahead.


And this last one is for Joan, who noted recently just how dead these little Italian villages are when all the shops shut and everyone goes home for a long lunch.

Cloistered with Van Gogh

This is the Cloister of the Church of San Francesco here in Castiglion Fiorentino. Rebuilt at the beginning of 1600, it has a Tuscan-style double loggia in a rectangular plan. I began this time with a pencil sketch which I inked over using a fountain pen with Pelikan Brilliant Brown Ink. It was a relief to discover that even Vincent liked to give himself a pencil outline as a guide. I tried to replicated many of Van Gogh's marks and the little bird in the sky is a tribute to him. I'm rather pleased with this one!

I can't go on aping Vincent forever but what I can take away from this project is the realisation that there is more than one way to make a mark. I hope that in future the marks I make will give my sketches a great deal more energy.

Since the pencil sketch took so long (I find arches really difficult) I scanned it and printed a copy to practise my marks on rather than risk spoiling the drawing. I am now going to use the scan to play around with this image with some watercolour pencils. Since I originally posted this I have replaced the scanned image of the drawing with a photograph, which shows the true colour.

See the link in the previous post for more about the Fine Line Artists Van Gogh Project.