paintings prints and stuff

Dusk, winter, Grey ink and XL tinted charcoal in the S&B Zeta sketchbook An experiment across 2 pages of the new Zeta sketchbook with Grey ink and bamboo pen and Derwent's new XL tinted charcoal blocks.  Their new willow charcoal sticks are very nice too, really velvety unlike some that can be irritatingly scratchy. The charcoal is luscious and so are the tinted graphite blocks - well worth trying if you like to work larger and more freely. The Zeta sketchbook has very very smooth paper for those who use pen a lot and don't like texture.  It's also extremely heavy weight and can take a lot of pushing around, lifting out, washes etc The S&B sketchbooks are now available in the UK via Amazon and soon through Jackson's for anyone interested, I know a few people asked me for information. It's fun trying out new products :>) Now the weather is improving at long last I may manage to get out a little more to sketch. For those near the Cotswol

A sketch of dusk across the fields, done with the new chunky XL tinted charcoal sticks from Derwent. I've only got a few testers i earth colours and look forward to having the full set. They are really lush to use and I know I'm going to find them a very useful medium. Charcoal has always been one of my favourites when drawing. More work in these to follow :) I had liked the tinted charcoal pencils and these combine with them beautifully but allow broader marks and big washes of colour/tone, ideal for working this size (A4) or on a much larger scale. Using the edges it's possible to get quite fine marks but the pencils can add even finer detail as required. Being able to put down large marks keeps the spontaneity in drawings. Have you tried them yet?

This is somewhere I've sketched before as part of the waterways/Leicestershire project. It's an old packhorse bridge over flood meadows where the river Biam meets the river Soar. It used to be 200 yards long but only 50 survive. A lot was demolished when the canal and railway were built through the site. The buttresses sticking out are cut waters, protecting the bridge from the pressure of floods, keeping it standing for 600 years. Nearby is a field still showing the ridges of medieval strip farming, the canal and a railway track that is now a path for strollers and cyclists. It makes a route that cuts right across the city, joining with the canal towpath, through these meadows, industrial areas, through parks, the backs of houses, by my old university, finally reaching water meadows on the other side of town. This started with watercolour and continued with ballpoint pen, art bars, graphitints and gouache ... The kitchen sink may be in there somewhere.  Watercolour a

a flock of birds rise:  watercolour and mixed media, detail This is another look at the wonderful late afternoon light over the first snowfall of the year.  Getting the intense glow of the sun wasn't easy - until I treated myself to a tube of opera rose from Winsor and Newton .   It is intense !  mixed with transparent yellow it glows .  Thank you to my friend Robyn Sinclair for introducing me to this colour - another friend  Liz Steele also bought it on her recommendation and has fallen in love with it too! The whole painting: It isn't easy to see the glazes and subtle colour changes in this so, further details below:   This was done in the big A3 moleskine watercolour folio sketchbook.   A lovely size to use.   Unlike the S&B sketchbook though, I had problems with the page buckling, meaning a lot of moving the book to prevent gulleys of deeper colour settling - not good (it did dry flat).  The same wet wash in the S&B caused no b

Late afternoon light on snowy fields, a flock of birds suddenly took to the sky, watercolour and mixed media in Stillman and Birn Beta Hardback sketchbook Another in the series trying to capture the fleeting dramatic light on fresh snow and to get to grips with the sheer amount of liquid my new brush holds! This one is difficult to photograph as the photos tend to lose the subtle colours on the hillside and darken the sky just a fraction too much. This involved Derwent tinted charcoal pencils used with watercolour and a tiny touch of oil pastel in a Stillman and Birn Beta sketchbook with its lovely heavy paper. I'm not sure what the birds were - starlings or pigeons? And a watercolour version of the hedge:   Again it is done with watercolour plus tinted  charcoal pencils.

Winter snow and frozen puddles, watercolour and mixed media I just treated myself to a wickedly expensive brush and I'm busy test driving it.   It holds so much water!  that's something to adapt to.  It's a size 18 filbert that comes to a nice point. There is also a little Tombow pen drawing in there in a cool grey and a little of the ochre tinted charcoal from Derwent in the hedges. I did a couple of others that I'll show another day. What is your favourite watercolour brush?

Hedge silhoutted against the snow, late afternoon.  Charcoal and pastel This one started with a sketch in Derwent's tinted charcoal pencils (lovely subtle colours).  See the original sketch below. On the other side of the road was this wonderful early sunset that I'd done an iPastel sketch of on the iPad.  I thought it would be interesting to see how it worked with what was actuall a pale grey sky on the opposite side of the road, where the hedge was- so on the ipad I borrowed the sky from the ipad work and combined it with the sketch - this may well turn into a larger painting where I can play with those tangled twigs and branches :>) .  It was done in an A4 Stillman and Birn, hardback Beta book with lovely lovely heavy paper, that takes anything I throw at it.  I would love to get my hands on some A2/A1 sheets of this paper. The tinted charcoal pencils are gorgeous to use, with subtle natural colours and were perfect for the hedge and undergrowth.  I used a littl

Snowy early morning, slightly misty, ipad painting Another sketch done on the ipad of the morning filelds, a slight mist in the air and so quiet.  Again I played with the text tool as I felt it worked with this. Done with the Sketch Club app.

Painting from memory; a fabulous late afternoon with fresh snowfall, low sun throwing apricot through and bouncing off the dark clouds and the snow. I stopped on the way home to look at the gorgeous light on the landscape.  The furrows and tyre tracks in the ploughed field made a beautiful pattern on the hillside, with smooth snow n the adjacent field. The low sun threw apricot light on the snow and shone through the dark clouds. It didn't last long.   By the time I'd driven for maybe 5 minutes it was gone, the sky was all dark clouds or grey.  So this is from memories.  I did take some photos but didn't get them out when doing this and the previous one, I started it off in the Pen and Ink app The image was then imported into Sketch Club and I painted it on a layer below with some final touches on a layer above the 'pen' sketch. I like this ability to use layers - it replicated using a watercolour wash over a pen sketch and then using a little gou

Travelling home in the late afternoon the light was beautiful. The pattern of ridges and tyre marks in a ploughed field made sweeping patterns, defining the form of the land. The low sun reflected apricot colours on clouds and snow. And then a flock of birds took off from the field, making a beautiful moment even more special. I have to do some paintings from this, but for now I've just had time to do some sketches on the iPad. This is a test post from the iPad so I'm hoping it works ok.

Seedhead done with Artbars A5ish Another of the small pieces I did to show the different ways Artbars can be used, using some of the lovely subtle colours in the box along with the more vivid.  All work there was done on the new watercolour paper they devised to complement their water soluble media.   It's lovely, smooth and the colours glow against it. I do like the ability to use line and mass and switch constantly between with the same crayon. Had a great day yesterday catching up with old friends at an Open House full of great paintings, printmaking, felting, ceramics and glass.   Buzzing now :>) Will share some of the artists work later.

Watercolour and coloured pencil, approx 7.5 x 9.5 ins This one was done yesterday as a class demo.   Last week we'd looked at how various artists handled trees and undergrowth.   This week we looked at the sketchbooks of John Blockley, David Hockney, Kurt Jackson and David Prentice, also the line and wash work that Sue Lewington does. Then they wanted a demo of birches to see how I worked and discuss methods, order, techniques etc. It was done straight into watercolour, no preliminary drawing with pencil, with a mix of White Nights and W&N artists pans , on heavy watercolour paper, type unknown as it was donated by one of the class.  There are slight touches of watercolour pencils in there too. There has been a lot of this sort of light on my journey to and from work lately - brooding skies ahead but sunlight where I am, making the landscape glow.  This particular section is on a highish plateau - the countryside isn't actually this flat roundabout but appears to