Photo's on my Phone 28th July to 6th August 2024

Seems like ages since my last post, but it was only a week ago.

The sun has finally come out so the day's have been warm and fuzzy.

Ron didn't want to play ball anymore so he refused to move and forced his master to carry him. It was early evening and even though the temperature had gone down he still exhausted himself. This was after 5 mins of play, trouble is he runs a million miles an hour so gets tired really quickly. So no more ball play for Ron until it gets a lot cooler.

We went to lots of beaches. 

This is Woolacombe, in between swimming and playing football the boys pretended to be really cool, all Queenie and Grandpa wanted to do was lay in the sun and read their books, but alas caring for two small boys makes it impossible.

In between swimming and shouting at small boys to try and stop them kicking balls at people I did a sketch, which I'm not terribly happy. The tents were supposed to look like jelly fish and the jelly fish tentacles to look like the sea. I shouldn't have added the parasols, but I quite like the people, I added the spots to make it better, but instead I've made it worse. Sometimes things aren't meant to be.

The dogs re-enacted a photo taken about 9 years ago, only Tinks remains of the original 3. Siri has replaced Loki and Ron has replaced Billy, which is ironic because Ron hates cat's. I wish I still had a Billy, he was the best cat ever, but sadly we will have to wait until Ron has gone, fingers crossed it's a very long time. I will wait for another Billy in the same way I will wait for another Land Rover.

Our next beach trip was to Blacklands which is our local beach at the bottom of the hill,  it's a huge contrast  to Woolacombe. We did more swimming and I attempted to do more reading, I might of managed a page or two. I hate photo's of me, but this one is ok, its me & my small boys at home in my happy place.

Yesterday's beach was Crow point, no swimming as the tide was out, but plenty of sand, most of it is in still in my hair and sketch book! A little bit more relaxing as the boy's played on the big sand dune, which is on its own and means they can't disappear into the Burrows like rabbits never to be found again.

My Crow Point sketch is just a pencil sketch, I will work over it in fine line pen.

I've finished my first colouring of the ghost of Hollerday House, it's interesting to see how the colour changes the image. I love it and have already started on the next coloured print, the coloured Hollerday House will be available to buy as soon as I've worked out how much to charge. If you are interested please let me know.

I'm still working on the digital version of Summer, I can't wait to start colouring, but it will probably be digital colouring as the A1 print will be far too big.

Experiments & other stuff

Not only have I finished Ilfracombe , but I've also finished Woolacombe.

I quite like it, but got carried away with acrylic pen and have over worked it. I was going to have it framed so I could exhibit it, but I'm not sure its worth it, so I'll find/make a mount and sell it as it is.

After finishing a major project I always feel a bit lost, so this weekend I've been playing until inspiration strikes. I decided I needed to tackle my Verona green sketchbook, the paper is beautiful, but the green dulls the colours and colour is my thing, so I've struggled to use it. I decided to experiment with different mediums, the first was Posca acrylic pens (one of my favourites) and think I don't need to look any further they are perfect, the colours are luminous.

The drawing on the right is drawn with a 0.003 pen and coloured with a 0.5 pen, it would be nice if I could perfect combining the two pens. 

 

I follow the artist  Niamh Moran on Instagram she works over her prints, adding more colour and detail, so each print is individual. As I've got several prints that don't sell I thought I'd experiment.

This is the First quarter of Summer, I've used several different mediums trying to find one that works. I used fine line felt pens, marker pens, coloured pencils and finally acrylic pens. Fine line pens are too dark, the paper is porous so the markers bleed, my pencils are too soft, I struggle to keep them within the lines, but yet again the acrylic pens are perfect.

Experimenting with Summer has led me to look at it again.

Summer started as a drawing of all the places we had visited with our grand boys in the school summer holidays in 2022.

The original has orange juice and dog foot prints all over it thanks to my then very large bouncy puppy, so I knew I could never sell it, so I put it into photoshop and started drawing over it. In the autumn of 2022 I started drawing Lynton and abandoned Summer. At that time I had only drawn the top half, so I cut it into 2 pieces to sell as quarters of Summer.

I had several prints of the First quarter of Summer, but as it wasn't popular I never bothered having the second quarter printed.

At some point in time I coloured the first quarter in digitally, which I love. I only have one copy, which is framed and has been shown at my Exmoor Parks exhibition.

I loved the colour version so much that I want to colour the whole drawing, unfortunately I can't find the original the digital progress image, plus the two quarters didn't match up as I'd redrawn the edges where they met.

So I've started the digital drawing again. The above is what I have drawn so far, the cream background is just to give an idea of how big it is.

I have visions of an A1 coloured version, framed on my wall and maybe a plan of where to submit it if I finish it in time.

And lastly I have a new sketchbook, which I'm so excited about, it's a A5 concertina sketchbook. I will be able to draw one page at a time and slightly overlap onto the next page, enabling all the drawings to become one large image.

I'm so excited I can't wait for it to stop raining so I can find something to draw in it.

Photo's on my Phone 2nd July to 10th July 2024

 Another week of not much, except dog walking and drawing.

My friend and I took our love bugs for a walk up Hollerday Hill, where they chased each other up the hill, dug holes, slobbered on each other and played gentle tug of war. Siri always lets Edie have the stick/ball, he's twice her size and could easily win, but always defers to her in the end. Their bond is a beautiful thing to witness.

We spent some time at the allotment, its divided in half by the Tayberry (covered on green net on the second photo). 

Phil's half is neatly organised in rows, each time he plants he sifts the soil, all very scientific adding the right nutrients at the right time.

My half is chaotic and continues to evolve in its own special way. I've planted flowers and herbs along the edges, because I've always wanted a walled garden and this is the closest thing to one I can get. I'm growing a lot of onions and garlic, planted all over the place, courgettes, peas, beans and fruit bushes. I also have an asparagus bed which I'm very proud of, both my mother and granny had asparagus beds, neither were gardeners, but always produced a good crop each year. My bed is only in its second year, our soil is the worst possible soil for asparagus, I dug a couple of bags of sand in before I planted, the plants seem to be thriving and I have my fingers crossed for a good crop next year. I hope that one day Dais will follow in their footsteps and have one of her own.

My flowers are beautiful at this time of year, I'm especially proud of my rose William Lobb. I've had him quite a few years, he's moved from house to house in a pot, he's been at the allotment since we had it 3 years ago and this year he is spectacular and smells even better.

William Lobb grows next to my compost bins, those of you who remember NDS will recognise the bins.

On Monday we walked to the top of Dunkery Beacon, which is the highest point on Exmoor and Siri tried to dig up a stone to play with.

I was going to add more landscape photo's and talk about my relationship with the landscape, but I'm going to write a second post instead.

Ilfracombe is finished, I'll write a blog post when I've finished tidying it up.
Woolacombe is almost finished, think I might have spoilt it by colouring the roof's black, but never mind I might frame it anyway.

I only did one sketch last week, waiting in the car while Phil walked the dogs on the wrong side of Countisbury Hill, I'd strained my back from standing all day at the town hall market the previous day. The market was so good that I've treated myself to a posh concertina sketch book, I'm very excited, can't wait till it arrives.

Looking towards the East Lyn, drawn with a 0.03 pen

Sketch books

 

In the past I was always very precious about my sketch books. I wanted to keep them pristine, so didn't draw on the page in case I made a mistake and had to rub it out. All the drawings and images were glued in.

The one below is from 2002, the image is of the Sutton Hoo excavation and the painting is the treasure being excavated on hand made paper. I used the sketch books as diary's and filled them full of angst ridden  waffle about how I was a failing artist.

Life has taught me that I don't have time to angsty about being an artist, its who I am and I will always draw.

Fast forward 20+ years, my worry about perfection has gone, now I draw directly on the page, some of it is good, some of it is bad, but it all fits together and is a diary of my life.

The following drawings are from my current A5 sketch book, I also have an A6 and A4.

Woolacombe                                                        Lynton

 

I like to draw from life, the boys are a big part of life and watch me drawing. Of course they want to draw too and when we are out and there's nothing for them to draw on I let them draw in my sketch book. 

I would never of let them anywhere near my precious sketch books years ago.

The above drawings were drawn at half term on Dunster beach, I drew the path of the river Avill running down to meet the sea. I told Bert to draw what he could see, so he drew the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point and a container ship in the Bristol Channel.

I take my sketch book everywhere and draw when we're out dog walking. Phil has long legs and walks a lot faster than me, so at some point in the walk I will stop to draw while he carries on walking with the dogs. The drawing above is of Holdstone down,  I continued drawing and did some colouring when I got home.

The view from Daddy's garden of the hillside on the other side of the river, in Lynmouth.

Lynton, from Holman Park looking up towards Station Hill. Sketched on sports day in between races and tidied up when I got home, I might continue with this one.

Yesterday we went to Crow Point, the first time since our car disaster, this Appledore drawn from Crow Point beach across the mouth of the river's Taw and Torridge. It must be at least half a mile across the river, probably further, so it's difficult to make out details, even the close ups on my iPhone art very good.

I will tidy it up, but probably won't take it any further.

And finally the boys drawings at the back of my sketch book. 

As I said previously I've told Bert to draw what he see's and that sometimes the only place he will be able to see what to draw is inside his head, but that doesn't matter and not to listen to people who say otherwise.

A couple of weeks ago I'd forgotten what I said to him, we went to a meal with some friends, when he got bored I gave him my sketch book and he drew his food, knife and fork.  I am so proud that he remembered my advice.

On the other page Maggie drew a snake (I think) and wrote his name.

I'm so proud of both of them 💙💙