Tried the ink wash-off technique. I had too much black India ink in my mix, but it makes for a very dreamy result all the same!
This is another tree from Bushy Park by the way. We used to go there a lot when we had Timber. Didn't mean to make a pun about trees here, but we did name our dog Timber. Perfect name! He was the perfect dog!
For this exercise from Dolores Phelps's online workshop, I worked in ink, with lots of water. There is so many combinations, water first, ink first, wash off, spray a little, spray a lot, how long to let the ink dry before you wash it off. Again I have used a photo of trees from a real location (Bushy Park) as inspiration and to guide me in observing the morphology of trees. I can't wait to try this with colour! I have actually started a Trees album in my Google Photos and realised that I had a #LoveTrees hashtag in my blog. I think that's the universe trying to tell me what to paint next. And mountains, clouds, sea too of course. I hope my karma is good, because I'm going to need several lifetimes to paint everything I want!!
For these tree exercises from Dolores Phelps's course, I had to work from a photo I have of somewhere on the Dublin mountains. I have this need to work from my own experiences, even if the result doesn't look realistic!
This one is the second one I tried, on cold press paper. Things went a little crazy on the left, but I like the feeling of light on those fir trees on the right!
The ArtNetDLR site is now showing my watercolours for sale. I'm very excited!! On Monday, we hang the exhibition, and on Wednesday evening, the exhibition will be opened by Jean Ryan, storyteller and art historian.
Hands have never been my strong point. But I was probably icing my foot, and all I had was a fineliner, so there you go. Sorry now I didn't draw the shadow under my hand, but it's dark now and the shadow from the downlighters would be all wrong.
Picked a few (almost) random colours from my colour pencils and played with them. I think they will be good for an autumnal scene! We'll see. I feel like I'm starting a new journey when I'm half way around the world with watercolours and ink!
I haven't been feeling it much for the last 6 weeks. Who would have thought that a broken foot would have such an impact on my life. But I never stop painting and drawing. There are so many resources out there to keep me motivated and inspired. Too many probably, as I keep switching gear, rather than explore one thing only. Right now, I'm looking at Louise Fletcher's videos and how she freely explores with limited colours. So I picked up my hot press sketchbook (which I bought by mistake, I don't like hot press paper), a bottle of black acrylic ink, a bottle of green liquid watercolour and a green Stabilo Woody pencil, and also a pale green Luminance pencil. Here is what I got. I quite like it. It makes me think of an amphitheatre somewhere. I might do more with it. Or I might not. Although I don't like the idea of obliterating layers!
I'm so lucky to have so many good friends - in the last few weeks, I've had friends picking me up to go for tea in Airfield, scones at home, people have come to visit and cheer me up when I was feeling cabin feverish. And last Sunday, Alice picked me up at home and brought me to our sketching location, near the Dodder in Dartry. It was so lovely to sit on a bench, feel the dappled light on my skin, hear people chat, see dogs run, and yes, a rhinoceros in the river! It's not real! And I have no idea why the Dropping Well (the local pub) decided to have a sculpture of a rhinoceros in the river. But it was fun to draw it. And yes, it is autumn in this part of the world and the weather was gorgeous. It hasn't been so good in the last few days, with lots of rain, and major flooding in other parts of the country.
An interesting technique. We don't really have those kinds of mountains in Ireland, but I'm thinking the technique could be useful for the stone walls, covered in moss. It's a really simple technique, stamping with gouache, using tissue paper (the kind you get in fancy shops to wrap what you've just bought). But it delivered surprisingly well!
I had left two white spaces against the mountain in my sky, but my heart sank when I saw my cerulean blue and indigo watercolour drift off and close the gap!! So it's a little bit of a cutout effect.
As I'm writing this, I'm keeping my toes crossed that the consultant will tell me that my bone is all healed and I don't need to wear the orthopedic boot any more!
This little sketch is a memory of a wonderful afternoon last week, when three sketchers, Brigid, Aisha and Annah, came to visit me at home. We chatted a lot, sampled biscuits and donuts, and we sketched. I was so happy that Brigid and Aisha jumped in at the deep end and sketched people (there was only the three of us) from life, for the first time ever. With great results. Sketching people is something I love doing and it fills me with joy when other sketchers discover that they can do it too!
A bit of catching up needed before my scheduled posts expire! Yes, that's my secret. I write my posts in advance and schedule them for publishing. Which means my life runs on three tracks. 1 real life, 2. blog life, 3 Instagram life, which is generally at least 2 or 3 weeks behind. It's confusing. To me anyway.
So as I'm looking at these trees and the granulation I've created, I think, oooh, I like that. I must do that again! Because it happened at least a week ago (or a month ago if you're following on Instagram).
My interpretation of the autumnal marshy landscape. Daniel Smith Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Monte Amiate Natural Sienna, Green Apatite Genuine, and a purple mix that's got a bit of everything in it!
More from Dolores Phelps's online course. I'm daring myself to paint even wetter than usual!
Experiment with colours mixing on the page - Schmincke Vulcan yellow (a granulating pigment - I found it kept settling in my mixing dish, so hard to pick it up with a pipette), Carmine, Indigo mix, Violet Raw Umber, and Green Apatite Genuine. And lots of water!
Still working through Dolores Phelps's online course. This is a variation on a previous exercise.
I ended up with very blue fingers, and very wet towels! Some worked out better than others, but I felt I had to do three pieces to justify the mess. I wish I had more room!
This one is my favourite
Decide to try a vertical format this time. Worked very wet. A little bit of wax candle for resist. Added a little bit of ink (my indigo mix, and also a Sennelier burnt sienna) above and below the resist on the horizontal line. Worked very wet. It will take days for the paper to dry completely!
I'm still working on cheap paper that was on the shelf for the last few years. I must try and see how it works on better paper. Sometimes better paper doesn't equal better textures!
Not much, but done from life. Brendan drove us to Dun Laoghaire and we sat in the car. In the time I drew, the tide had gone up and the rocks had disappeared. Somehow, I had forgotten about this sketch, done a few weeks ago.
Another great session of Street View World Tour with Eleanor Doughty and Jenny Adam. We travelled from Japan to the Philippines via Scotland (11 anyone?)
I just enjoyed playing with the various tools I had on my desk, Sailor fude pen, Pilot parallel pen, watercolour, acrylic markers. I kept it simple, as time was short (10-30-20 minutes) and my energy levels were quite low.
I added some Prussian Blue to my watercolour mix (Holbein Neutral Tint, Daniel Smith Phthalo Turquoise, and Daniel Smith Prussian Blue)
I didn't have a wax candle handy, so I thought I would try with oil pastel. Not a good decision. Which is a pity, because the flushing of the ink looked promising!
I think I have posted this one on Instagram already - My orderly blog posting is all over the place these days. But never mind.
So Brendan had to run an errand in Stillorgan, and he dropped at Bear Mrkt, and I got to sit down and enjoy my favourite matcha latte while sketching the scene in front of me. It felt so good to pretend there was nothing wrong with my foot. It was just me sketching in a café and enjoying chatting to people!
PS: best matcha latte in town!
Last Saturday, a gang of sketchers descended upon my house. It was the best! We had so much fun chatting, eating and sketching! It made me feel so wonderful. I am so lucky to have such good friends who look out for me when I need them. And I really needed them! For a few hours, I didn't think about my foot!! Thank you Maya for organising this! I am so grateful!
PS: I didn't have enough time to sketch everyone, but I hold you all in my heart for your kindness!
Over the last few weeks, I've been mostly stuck at home with my broken foot (I do get outings and visitors, but there is definitely a loss of autonomy that I am slowly getting used to - good practise for old age!)
So I was delighted to take part in a Zoom session with Suhita Shirodkar where about 30 of us drew from a picture of fabulous redwoods somewhere in America.
Subscribe to her Substack to attend monthly sessions of sketching with Suhita. Don't ask me what Substack is. I think it's like Instagram without algorithm, so you see what you want to see. But I'm really not sure. All I know is that I had a wonderful half hour sketching this view - it's good to practise fast sketching Lately, I think I have got slower, and I don't want to be slower!!
I had to try some colours!! But I think that flowers are not for me. Interesting that I had more trouble controlling the thickness of the pipette-water-first stalks this time - they went very blobby - need more practice
This one reminds me of the grounds around Parknasilla hotel in Kerry, lots of moss and drippy vegetation. And I'm learning how to use the waterspray bottle - light sprinkle for the mossy effect, and liberally to wash the ink off the page. Now is probably a good time to put that plastic sheet under the towel on my desk!
And about the importance of testing your dark ink colours before you apply them. The mix here turned out to be too dark, and the water wasn't wet enough, so some of the ink just stopped there, and created these weird shapes. No amount of watercolour on top was going to recover that. Although I can picture in my mind how that would work with other colours!
So the result is a kind of scary-movie flowers, the kind that might eat animal protein!
Another exercise from Dolores Phelps's online workshop. Hard to control the pipette, but it's so worth it, when you get the feeling of fields or wetlands criss-crossed by reeds, without having to touch a rigger brush!!
I've always painted quite wet, but this is beyond what I normally do, with water and paint everywhere! It's good to let go of anticipation, and to let the water lead the way! Working in monochrome so I'm not distracted by colour. But that is really hard for me. I would love to have some burnt umber in there!!
Yes, I'm still all over the place - wild watercolours in the one hand, coloured pencils in the other !!
And no, I could not decide which colours I wanted! And they're all simply gorgeous. Let's just say that Christmas came early. Can't wait to grab a random 6 pencils and see what I can do with them!! I think that they will all work well together!
I needed something to keep me sane. So I signed up for Dolores Phelps's Wild Watercolour online workshop. I love her very wet and wild technique, so this is going to keep me going for the next few weeks! She uses watercolour and ink also. All these first exercises are all with Indigo, so we don't get distracted by colour!
This photo here was when the ink was still damp. Notice the huge drying shift with ink!
