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 💙💙

Photo's on my Phone 26th June to 2nd July 2024

Last Tuesday my lovely friends held a surprise late birthday party.
Lots of birthday cake and much love & appreciation for the girls or maybe I should call them ladies💖

Then on Wednesday it was sports day, I didn't take many photos as I know some parents aren't happy about their children's photo's being shared, so I have been very careful and tried to cut all the people out. 

The cheer leading team.

From left to right - Step mum, Nanny, Queenie (grandma) and last but most importantly Mummy.

The first photo is of the start of one of Bert's running races and the last 2 of Maggie's sack race. 

There was much debate between the cheer leaders as whether Maggie had come 3rd or 4th. Mummy thought it was 5th, but I don't believe she was looking in the right direction.

It was very hot!

The rest of the week has consisted of drawing and dog walking, plus a little bit of playing Zelda when I can fit a few minutes in.

I've almost finished Woolcombe

And Ilfracombe

I finally managed to pop over and take the missing photo's, not only have I missed a building out completely, but the road curves round to the left. I've got a lot of cut and pasting to do to get the road in the right place. I suspect I might still need to take more photo's.

Ilfracombe & woolcombe wip's & next.

 

Ilfracombe is nearly finished, I've just got to finish the water and my problem area, still haven't got round to poping over to take a couple of photos, but we have had car issues.

I'd almost given up with Woolacombe.

I was going to leave it unfinished and just about to take it off the board, but I've had a flash of inspiration, if I frame it slightly wonky it will resolve the straightness issues. I probably don't make much sense, but if you look at the photo's you can see what I mean.

Wonky

Slightly less wonky

 This looks more wonky, but it's only because I've twisted it in photoshop rather than real life.

My next drawing on the board will be Holdstone Down, one of our favourite dog walks. I want to draw it as an A2, but I've got a A3 frame waiting to be filled. Phil said to do what I wanted so A2 it is, eventually I'll draw an A3 to fit the frame.

I was going to take out the dogs and Maggie in the distance, but maybe I'll leave them in...

Google has just told me that Holdstone Down is considered as one of 19 holy mountains by the Aetherius Society, which I'd never heard of. It seems to be a religion based on new age and UFO beliefs. Its given me an exciting new set of  possibilities for my drawing, maybe I could sneak a ufo somewhere into the grass.

Photo's on my phone - 16th to 25th of June 2023 (& Birthday do over)

 It's been another eventful week, not so much stress, just our normal chaotic existence.

I did the craft fair at the the National Exmoor Park centre, as you can see, it's a big reason for my decision to stop trying to be a business. The highlight of the day was the Waverley paddle steamer sailing past Lynmouth, apparently its the last paddle steamer in the world and regularly visits Ilfracombe, one day we will finally organise ourselves to book a trip.

Last Monday we drove the beast to Wales for its last trip and came home in a new car. I cried a lot, I hope the Beast has a happy new life in Wales and that someone will love it as much as we did. The new car is a Honda CRV and the best I could say was it's ok, so has become the Okcar.

We will have another Beast, just not now, maybe when we've retired and Phil doesn't need to commute every day.

The compensation for losing the Beast is the promise to finally replace the Zoom in a couple of years time. We want to take our new Zoom on a big European road trip for our 40th wedding anniversary.

The original Zoom was a Mark 1 MX5. In 2006 we drove it solidly for 10 days, from home in Suffolk, down through France, Germany, Switzerland, to Alassio on the Italian Riviera, along the coast through Monaco to St Tropez, where we ate fish soup & Tart Tropezienne in a cafe on the harbour for our 20th wedding anniversary and then back up through France to go home. It was the best holiday we ever had and have always wanted to do something similar again.

This time it will be in a posh Zoom, we're going to be 20 years older, so need a bit more comfort for our old achy bones. I've made the above image to look at every time I feel sad, it won't be this car, but it will be something similar and will have to be black to honour the original Zoom.

(Thanks to auto trader for the Mercedes photo, I would link the page, but can't find it, maybe some lucky person has bought the car.)

Anyway back to reality. 

Our first dog walk in the Okcar was up to Countisbury, the wild foxgloves are out. It was a lot warmer than it looks.

The next day the alternator broke on the Okcar, so much for buying a reliable car!!! But repairing it was a lot cheaper than having to repair it on the Beast.

Yesterday we took the Okcar on its first road to trip for my birthday do over, we drove across Devon, over Dartmoor to Slapton Sands on the South coast. 

It was the site for the disasterous rehearsal of the Normandy landings in 1944, a lot of men died in friendly fire, then German E-boats turned up and killed a lot more. 

Now it is a peaceful stretch of shingle in an idyllic setting, hard to imagine what happened there.

Yet again I didn't take many photo's, I was too busy enjoying the day.

I surprised myself to discover I really enjoyed driving the Okcar, its seats are really uncomfortable, but it makes up for it by being light, bouncy and very responsive to drive. Maybe it will be ok for the foreseeable future.

Being a bit brave & happy

Over the last few months Ive come to realise that I've been trying to turn my art into a business.

I didn't restart drawing to make money or build a business.

I restarted drawing after 40 years, because it makes me happy.

Drawing drawings that I think other people will like, buying stock, finding stockists, doing craft fairs with minimal sales (what kind of idiot starts a business selling art in a recession?), doesn't make me happy.

I've got 2 more Lynton Town Hall markets to do and I might book the town hall Christmas market because I like being at the town hall it makes me happy to be part of the village, but these 3 markets will be the last.

Instead of which I am going to start applying to exhibit my work in art exhibitions, thanks to the broken chaotic life we lead my mental state is fragile, which has left me scared of pushing myself to far and the possibility I'll fail and failure will break me. But failure is only a thing when you stop trying, so the answer is not to stop trying

SO ... I've just applied to a local summer exhibition, it doesn't matter if my work gets chosen, the fact I've been brave enough to do it is enough.

One of the pieces I have submitted is my First Quarter of Summer, maybe I will finally finish the other 3 quarters. 

And maybe next year I'll be extra brave and apply for the RA summer exhibition!

Photo's on my Phone 26th of May - 15th June 2024

 I don't seem to have many photo's on my phone, maybe because we haven't been anywhere for a few weeks.

Siri has spent a lot of time with his girlfriend over the past few weeks, but she's away on holiday at the moment, so he's really sad. She'll be back next week, so hopefully he'll cheer up again.

I walked Tinks & Siri to the top of Hollerday Hill in the sunshine.

We had a barbecue with our neighbours, we are really blessed to be surrounded by such a lovely group of people.

We went to the allotment, which still isn't growing, after being too wet for too long, its now too dry, however the last 2 days its gone back to being really wet again and a small animal has eaten all my strawberries!

The super cars came back to Lynton last weekend to take part in the Lyn Valley Classic, if you like cars it's an amazing event in a stunning location. These were all in Lynton, but Lynmouth was full of them too.

P.S the Lamborghini is my new replacement for the Land Rover!

And finally after living together for 6 years Tinks let Ron lie next to her on the sofa. 

This is the only photo that he looks relaxed, all the others you can see the fear in his eyes, but he put himself there which was very brave of him.

Yesterday I wrote a blog post and drew a picture of my hangover on my new very interesting green paper. The colour is called Verona Green and as colour has always been my thing I googled it. Verona Green has a really interesting history, if you want to know more you can read about it here https://www.naturalpigments.com/artist-materials/green-earth-pigments

This is Woolacombe as it looks today, I haven't got much to do. I'm not happy with the fact it seems to be bending away on the right side, I'm not sure how to get it back to the right position. If it was a digital drawing I would have cut and pasted it in the right place by now.

Ilfracombe is also close to being finished. I still don't have photos of the bottom left side corner, but think I might manage to narrow it down to one missing building, fingers crossed google can find it for me as I don't trust the Land Rover to get me to Ilfracombe and back. There aren't any petrol stations in between here and there and I don't want to be stranded in the middle of a field with a leaky car.