I don’t watch a lot of tv, I would generally rather paint, read or play music but there are a few programs I enjoy like The Repair Shop, Escape to the Chateau and Bake off. Last night was the final of Bake off so I have painted the three finalists here. I won’t say who won in case any of you haven’t seen it yet. Apologies if you don’t live in the UK and have no idea what these programs are about!
A post from one year ago came up on Facebook this morning, it was a watercolour of a cellist. I thought I would try a similar theme to see if I have made any improvement. I think my watercolour technique has improved but I need to get more accuracy in the initial drawing. Back to the drawing board!
Yesterday there was a virtual meeting of the Poole and Bournemouth urban sketchers group, the theme was Victorian architecture which Bournemouth has in abundance. I couldn’t join in yesterday as I was doing the Sky arts portrait artist of the week so I had a go today. This is Westbourne arcade, one of my favourite places because it has a wonderful old music shop called Don Strikes.
Painting Russell Tovey in the Sky Arts portrait artist of the week.. once again there was a fascinating interaction between the artist and sitter. I chose watercolour this week.
I have been working on a couple of things for Christmas today so here is a sketch from a couple of weeks ago. Corfe Castle with sheep.
I spent yesterday morning sorting and tidying in the garage so I had a car load to take to the tip this morning. I had to pay £6 to get rid of an old fire extinguisher but the rest simply had to be sorted into the right skip. I had an old garden rake with a wooden handle and metal head. Wood skip or metal skip?
I tried painting some horses in watercolour today. I started with some quick pencil sketches in a sketch book and added colour but it was only thin paper and didn’t work very well so I changed to a heavy watercolour paper which leto me splotch as much paint as I like without the paper curling up.
As much as I dislike Christmas shopping I think we will all miss seeing the High Streets decorated with Christmas lights and shop displays reflected in the wet pavements. I feel for those with retail businesses, they must be very worried about their future and we should do what we can to support our local businesses.
Today’s watercolour of Fletcher was done without any preliminary drawing, I tried being brave and going straight in with paint. I am quite pleased with the result so I might try this again.
JMW Turner was a clever bloke. In the early part of the 19th century he travelled around the UK and Europe painting beautiful watercolours. Now assuming he wasn’t able to order on line he must have ground up his own pigments to paint with. I have tried to copy his painting of the old chain pier, Brighton. Perhaps if I leave it for 200 years the colours will look like his but I doubt it.
