I spent the morning stewarding at the Gallery Upstairs in Upton Country park for the Broadstone Art Society exhibition. I have four paintings exhibited, the first time I have ever shown. This is me stood nest to my acrylic seascape. ( The lower one)

At the Parish art group this morning our tutor Frances Shearing did a demonstration in watercolour where she painted a coloured background then drew over it using pure colour on a stick which we then softened with a brush. This is my attempt at this interesting technique, I am pleased with the result so will use this again.

This was the initial watercolour sketch for yesterday’s portrait. I like to do a quick sketch first as it helps me see where I am likely to go wrong with the proportions and likeness. Unfortunately I often repeat the error when it comes to the longer version!

I decided to use pastels at our portrait session at Broadstone art Society this morning, I haven’t done a pastel portrait for a while so was pleased with the result. The sitter Eddie is a Society member and gave an interesting talk on portrait drawing and adding figures to a painting this afternoon.

Doing some practice portraits in watercolour from photos, I think I made the skin tone a little too dark here.

A very enjoyable morning sketching in Christchurch with the Poole and Bournemouth urban sketchers despite the early frost. Thank you Cat for organising it. I did a couple of pen and wash sketches plus one in pen that I haven’t added colour to yet so it was a very productive morning. This was my most successful (least unsuccessful!) sketch.

This painting is for a weekend challenge set by a watercolour group. Given a reference photo we had to create a painting in less than one hour, this didn’t include time spent on the initial drawing. I managed to paint it in 40 minutes of which 10 was waiting for the background wash to dry!