EDM 127, 128 - Skyscape, Doorway

I have sketched this view from the terrace before - in gouache
It's not far to walk!

One more sketch to catch up and then two to go after that to the end of May. I haven't made it yet but I'd give you odds on that I will.

P.S. I forgot one!

EDM #124 - Draw Something Yellow

A few more sketches

There's not a lot going right with my larger watercolours and monotypes lately so I thought I'd post a few more sketches made on my walks.

Madonna del Bagno

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.

Tuscan Village

Detail - Pen & Watercolour for FP Sketchbook Exchange

Finally, I have finished my pages in Glen's Flying Picture Sketchbook. Glen's theme is Flowers but you'll have to wait until Casey receives the book to see where I've put them. Meantime this is a tiny peek at my contribution.

No chance for a breather once I've sent Glen's book flying off to Casey, Nina's Polychromatic Behaviour is now waiting on my desk - it's another stunner! Photos will be posted shortly.

An Onion on my Desk

Watercolour & WC pencils - A4 scribble block

HWEM has started pulling the first onions from the garden. I want to do a proper watercolour but thought I had better catch one at least in a sketch before it loses its leaves. All the sketches I'm doing lately are on a cheap sketch pad I bought from the supermarket. It is so liberating! ( Note to Sharon - I've used some Perylene Maroon in this. Sharon has been painting onions as well.)

Watercolour & Pen - Val di Chio

Inspired by looking at some lovely loose pen and ink sketches in our Flying Pictures sketchbook exchange (see Casey and Ronell) I've started playing fast and loose with the local scenery. This is a detail from the view over the valley from our carpark.

Watercolour, Acrylic ink and pen

Acrylic inks I bought on special in London and not sure if I really needed!

Roman building - Pitt Artist Pens & ink

Two Hot Dogs suffering the Tuscan Summer

Sketching in Val di Chio

Lamy pen and wash with W&N Sepia ink

This week Sarah and I walked and sketched along the Old Mills Trail in the Val di Chio. Sarah has a post graduate interest in the ancient Etruscan waterways of the valley and her art is influenced by all things Etruscan.

Sarah sketching

Sadly we didn't find any old mills still standing but we did find grape vines growing in the traditional manner wrapped around the trunks of maples.

Lamy pen & watercolour - Canson 17.5 x 24 cm sketchbook

I'm still having trouble getting anything but very diluted colour with my waterbrush. Next time I think I 'll try the coloured pencil approach inspired by Katherine Tyrrell's lovely drawing in a vineyard not far from here.

Old stone structure in Val de Chio

I had to balance on a rock in the stream to take the photo above, so I didn't risk a sketch.

All sketches look a little drab here because I've had to scan the sketches because the light isn't great for photographs at the moment. Does anyone else have disappointing results with scans?

Collection of Old Doors

Moleskine watercolour sketchbook
Lamy pen with sepia ink and watercolour wash

A quick sketch. This one was done perched on my backpack stool. When a lady up the hill behind me emptied her mop bucket I made a hasty retreat.

And here are some more doors I strolled past on my way home.

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.

Two Fish After Ando Hiroshige

Watercolour detail after Hiroshige print

This is the second detail from the same Ando Hiroshige woodblock print. The prawns in my previous post were at the top of the print. My handmade watercolour sketchbook is too small for the whole composition of most of Hiroshige's prints. I tried to work a bit faster with this one so it is much more obviously my work, not Hiroshige's. There is one more of his famous fish prints I must do and then I'm thinking I might try a bit of Japonisme of my own - inspired by Hiroshige, of course.

Speaking of Japonisme, through a comment on my previous post, I discovered a blog called Japonisme by Lotusgreen. If you are into beautiful things - paintings or objects, treat yourself by paying Lotusgreen a visit. And don't forget, if you want to know more about this journey into Japanese Art, you'll find it all on Making a Mark.

Pienza Pen & Wash

Pienza Duomo - A4 Pen & Wash

These pen & wash sketches are great exercise. I'm still having trouble with proportion, sketching directly with a dip pen (no opportunity to make corrections). As a drawing this one is way off but I am happy with the colour and light. And it is loose and fast. At last!

For anyone interested in some tips on Pen & Wash I recommend John Lovett's 10 minute DVD Fast & Easy Pen & Wash (a bargain!). This scene is from a photo I took looking in the opposite direction to the Pienza sketch I posted the other day. John tells me painted the Pienza Duomo a few years ago. I'd love to see what he made of it.

Playing Fast & Loose with Pen & Wash

Pen & Wash W&N A4 Sketchbook
(not watercolour paper unfortunately)

This was an experiment, sketching directly with dip pen and brown ink. I thought it was an absolute disaster while I was working and was glad it was in a perforated sketchbook where I could give it the Big Rip. Now, with all its flaws, I quite like it. Wonders will never cease.

Pienza is just across the valley from where we live. It is a tiny gem of a town constructed in 1459-61 because Pope Pius II thought the original village, Corsignano (his birthplace) wasn't grand enough . It is described as a folly, but what a folly. You can hardly move for visitors in the summer. I'm told Zeffirelli filmed some of Romeo & Juliet here.

My sketch doesn't do it justice so I'm giving you a photo as well.

There are fantastic views from the walls. The Duomo and the beautiful Renaissance Palazzo Piccolomini I will save for another time. But don't say I didn't warn you about the number of tourists, if you come in the warmer months.

Sketching and Snowing

Pitt Artist Pen & Pelikan ink wash

When we first arrived in in Tuscany I was distressed at the sight of a crippled old tom cat dragging himself past our house. I thought he'd probably been hit by a car until I saw him one morning, high on a rooftop, hunting!

This is a bit heavy handed as a sketch, but I think it would make a nice woodcut if only I could make a woodcut!

I've been suffering from Snow Envy for a couple of days after seeing Casey Klahn's photos of his new studio sitting in a beautiful snowscape. My inner child was delighted to wake this morning to a small helping of our own snow.

It doesn't seem that long since our favourite neighbour was sunning himself on one of those lounges. It's blowing a gale now and we are expecting more of the white stuff in the morning.

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

Sketching Frenzy

Watercolour thumbnail from photo reference

I won't bore you will all the quick sketches I've done today, suffice it to say I was in a sketching frenzy. I'm so excited to finally have a teacher and so depressed that I haven't focussed enough before on quick sketches from life. So after a few more thumbnails with various media this morning, I headed out to tackle some quick sketches before the weather turned sour.

Charcoal pencil & water

The challenge here was to sketch in minutes rather than my usual hours. Raindrops all over the cheap sketch pad spurred me on. This is the first time I've mixed charcoal with water and I rather like it.

On the way home the sun came out so I stopped at the San Francesco church and tried my Pental waterbrush with watercolours. I was amazed how well it worked just wiping the brush on a paper towel between colours.

10" x 7" Cotman CP 140lb paper
fineline uni pen and watercolour wash