I am not the same person

I am not the same person I was a year ago. I never really thought of this before. But since hitting my sixties, I'm wise all of a sudden. I was looking at a painting I did about a year ago, I call it Star Wars over Ceann Sibeal. But what I ended up painting today is very different. Of course, I was looking at a different landscape, but also, I took more joy in mixing neutrals. We'll see where this goes. I'm seeing a few major things I need to fix (like, does it look like a dragon or a snake sniffing something?), but I do like the colours.

Pencils4Tea 18 Sep 2025

I'm staying with just the Blackwing pencil for my Pencils4Tea sessions. This is a very focused version of me! I normally change tools constantly. But it is satisfying to see the pencil getting shorter!! 

I was previously working on a very smooth paper (Stillman & Birn Zeta maybe?) and now I'm using Stillman & Birn Beta. There's a lot more texture. I need to figure out a better way to work with it!

 

Colour Colour

Love the variety of mixes I get from these 2 yellows, 1 red and 1 blue (see previous post). I think my black ink phase has passed. It served its purpose. But I feel joy looking at these colours. 6 to a watercolour sheet. Which will I pick as the inspiration for my next painting?

Colour swatches are so regulating

I just love colour. It is so soothing to me. So, I went back to my studio book. I don't date things in there. Maybe it's about a year ago? And I found the colours I had used for a particular painting. I knew there was Phthalo Blue Red Shade in there. But I discovered that the red was Sennelier Carmine (pigment PV19, but so different from the other PV19s I know!!) and I used two yellows, Mayan yellow and Quin Gold. I can't find my tube of Mayan yellow - it's unlikely I used it all up, so it's a mystery. But replaced it by Hansa Yellow Light. And I looove the mixes. I'm excited about the possibilities.

The Bank

A great location. I love many of the buildings on Dame street. This one is as spectacular inside as outside, but I struggle with interiors, and it was such a nice mid-September day. I started with loose shapes in tempera sticks and built up with ink, watercolour, colour pencils, some white gel pen and whatever else was in my kit. Done completely on location, like all my sketches. But of course I forgot to take a photo, except at the start of my process, which I'm glad to have!

Back to colour?

I've been doing lots of sumi ink and darks lately. Somehow, I felt the need to get back to colour.

Trying a few mixes. I'm very proud of only changing one variable (the red), but then my mixes were quite random, intuitively deciding what to mix in next.

What was I made for?

Looking at what's on my wall in my studio, and it's all dark ink and strong value contrast and jagged shapes.  Now I look at it all, and I think, that's not me. But maybe the act of putting it on paper was like an exorcism? Like, expressing that darkness and sharp angles served its purpose of getting it out of my system?

I don't know. But I do know that I'm thinking about colour again, and waves and skies.

If you're interested in knowing what goes on in my head, here are a few pages from my studio book. If you can read my handwriting.

Is it any better?

I think the post-apocalyptic versions were better. At least I now know that I can apply sumi ink on top of fixed soft pastel. The fixative I used is the Degas casein fixative, non toxic etc.

I've been using soft pastel as if it's oil pastel. Maybe I need to learn a bit more about how to use it.

Powerscourt Townhouse

A rainy day in Dublin. The Powerscourt Townhouse is a perfect location. Indoors, but with the feeling, and the light, of the outdoors. The sun came out and cast amazing shadows, then disappeared on and off for the rest of the afternoon. It felt good to be social again after 3 weeks of fatigue caused by Covid. I'm eating healthy in an effort to boost my immune system. Tokyo Bowl in Sprout.

Chrysanthemum

I don't draw flowers very much. But I got this lovely chrysanthemum pot in Marks & Spencers and I simply had to draw it. And I love how watercolour behaves on the Seawhite of Brighton cartridge paper.

Work in progress - watercolour, sumi ink and soft pastel

Lots to fix in these two pieces. I need to apply fixative first so that the soft pastel doesn't smudge. And I need more darks with sumi ink. At this point, they look more like post-apocalypse landscapes than jagged rocks. That's ok. That's something I'm interested in too.

Painted on Fabriano Unica print paper. 

Harold's Cross

First time out sketching since I got back from Poznan. I'm still coughing but I don't feel quite as fatigued. A quick sketch in a café first (matcha latte had no taste whatsoever), then to the park, where I chose my location based on the shelter from the rain. It was pretty dull, but a hint of autum in the trees made the view interesting to me. I worked with a pilot parallel pen, watercolour, tempera stick, neocolors. Then I added gouache at home. 

Before adding gouache

At the Hairdresser's

It was time to cover those roots! And bring new paintings to Eddie to display in his salon. I bring random tools with me when I go to the hairdresser's. It forces me to explore with marks that don't come naturally to me.

Jagged - expressing

I've been enjoying the effect of sumi ink. It's so dark, so mat, but there is a warmth to it. Here I worked first in watercolour. Then sumi ink (applied with a found object and an Asian brush). Then soft pastels. I have a small collection of Unison pastels. They are so yummy. I like it that they come in "collections", sets of colours that work well together. The set I used has 8 colours (half sticks), I think, warm and cool greys.  They work so well together. And I like how they look on top of the ink. I like this first one best, with the movement of the wind in the sky. But the second one has a stronger sense of volume. Can I develop something that combines both of these? I worked on smooth paper in quarter sheet.

Earlier layer, before the soft pastel was applied:

Jagged - thinking

I've been thinking about my cough, and how it relates to what I'm trying to paint - all these rocks with jagged edges. A landscape is never just a landscape. My studio book helps me to figure out where I'm going.