Eastleach sketching trip

After a couple of dismal days, our small group were fortunate to choose excellent weather for our planned sketching trip to Eastleach village in the Cotswolds earlier this week.

We met up for coffee on arrival and then later for lunch on the terrace of the Victoria Inn.  My first sketch was of the Clock Tower Cottages, just across from the Inn.  Lots of awkward angles to contend with here. These five cottages (built in the early 1870s) were designed by a renowned Victorian architect, Henry Astley Darbishire, at the request of the squire, Sir Thoms Bazley.  It is understood they were originally used as almshouses.

Pencil and pen sketch (8" x 5.5")

After lunch we made our way over the old "clapper" footbridge and alongside the River Leach, where I found a shady spot near one of the two churches in the village.

Pen and watercolour (8" x 5.5")

More "Collage up your Journal" pages

 A couple more pages from my collage journal.

I liked the colour of this magazine image of a bowl and tied it in
with a background of some of my painted papers

A couple of sliced up/re-arranged lino prints on book pages

The Collage Journal continued

 

Book pages, printed tissue and old sketches

Another five pages to fill in this handmade sketchbook.

Another Collage Journal page

 

I tried using wallpaper paste as suggested by Lydia Rink - much easier to spread on thin/tissue papers than PVA, also allows a certain amount of re-positioning.  However, with several layers of collaged paper my pages became completely saturated and took an age to dry and flatten.  I now mix the paste with some PVA which provides a less watery consistency, but retaining the advantages of the wallpaper paste.

Collage journal continued

 Another couple of collage pages completed.

Paste paper, printed papers and a scanned sketch

The printed and stitched tissue paper background was done
a while ago, I just added the lettering shapes and 
the lino printed face

Collage Journal

I mentioned earlier that I was following an online course by Lydia Rink.  The first task was to construct a simple handmade journal for our collage work.  Lydia uses text, letter shapes and found images - you can see some of her work here.

The first couple of exercises related mainly to shapes and composition and I must admit my initial attempts are not worth showing.  However, I will persevere and hope to improve by the time my journal is complete.

Collage Journal cover (approx 6" x 8")

Book pages and hand-printed tissue

More printed tissue paper, scan of watercolour sketch
and hand-cut lettering

Inktober sketches - 3rd and 4th

Fuchsia from the garden and spindle berries from my walk.

 

Inktober 1st and 2nd

 

I usually start off Inktober with sketches of garden, house plants or foliage picked on my daily walks.  However, heavy rain on the 2nd kept me indoors and I resorted to visualising a jazzy outfit for my little artist's mannikin.

A walk in the Cotswolds

Other than my daily exercise - a cycle ride or a walk locally - yesterday was my first planned trip out with a friend since lockdown in March.

We met up in the Cotswold village of South Cerney and took a gentle meander beside the River Churn, then along a disused canal towpath, heading back to our starting point across farmland.  The lane beside the river is unusually named "Bow Wow" and, despite my searches, I couldn't find any reference to its origins.  I am sure it must date to a time before the local residents started using it as a favourite dog walk.

The river at this point is also famous for being the starting point for the annual Grand Duck Race, when the village is closed to traffic and the streets are taken over for the May bank holiday festival. Visitors can pay for a numbered yellow bathtub duck in the hope it will be first to cross the finishing post.

This area has many old Cotswold stone buildings and a snapshot of this unusual riverside "garden room" is the subject of a small sketch in my journal entry for the day.

Garden folly along the Bow Wow
Pen and watercolour (approx. 2" x 3")

Flower studies

No virtual venue set for this month's local Urban Sketch group, but I promised myself I would set aside some time to draw.  A sunny day and lots of colour in the garden, so flowers it was.

Hahnemeuhle cappucino sketch book -
pen, watercolour, gouache and a touch of wax pastel

Sketchbook Revival - All Messed Up

Another gem from the Sketchbook Revival 2020 videos - Karen Stamper's "Wild Garden" in black and white.  I was particularly looking forward to this as I had found Karen's contribution last year inspiring and freeing.

Materials and techniques suggested were graphite, charcoal, candle wax, wax crayons, glue stick, torn paper stencils, leaf prints, ink (for drawing, spraying and wash), biro, markers, collage, etc.  The idea was to start with random graphite and charcoal, loose scribbles, areas of denser black with rubbed in crushed charcoal, resist marks with wax and glue stick, more charcoal, leaf shapes erased or sprayed through stencils, real leaf prints (directly on the page or collaged), finer lines with biro, inked lines with stick pen, etc.  All really wildly messy, but great fun.

I should probably have left more white areas - I did use white acrylic and then some gesso, but neither covered the charcoal as much as I would have liked.

The Tangled Hedge - mixed media in watercolour Moleskine 

Detail

Holiday sketches

A couple of sketches from a past holiday in Worcestershire.  They certainly bring back happy memories.

Both these were done on site, the first in the grounds of a stately home we visited; the second, a tiny sketch as we neared the end of a 5 mile walk through estate farmland.  My journal entry for that day records "We had a worryingly close encounter with three cows and their respective calves, but managed to escape unscathed".

The Ice House at Croome Park - pen and watercolour

Pirton Church - pen and watercolour

Sketches from the archives

Due to family illness and increased care responsibilities, my opportunity for art activities has been curtailed for the time being.  However, whenever I get a chance I will endeavour to add a few sketches from previous years.

Clampitt Falls

Paignton Harbour

The Court House, Castle Combe, Wiltshire

December Sketch Outing

Quite a few new faces at our Urban Sketch group today.  We met up for coffee in our Central Library cafe before dispersing to other areas of the building, mostly taking inspiration from the views outside.

The library itself is a fairly modern construction, but is attached to the Town Hall which was built in "neo-17th century Dutch style" in 1890.  The two structures enclose a courtyard and from the upper floors of the new building you can get a good view of the original decorative clock tower and cupolas.

I had already sketched the clock tower on a previous occasion, so today I concentrated on one of the cupolas.

5.11.16 - Town Hall Clock Tower
Pen and watercolour marker

Pen, watercolour, white gouache and gel pen
in the Hahnemuhle Grey Book

Holiday sketches

A few more drawings from my recent holiday.  These pen and wash sketches are quite tiny as my current watercolour travel journey is only 6" x 4" and I like to use about half the page to write up the day's events.

Petworth House (run by the National Trust) has been home to descendants of the same family for 900 years and contains an impressive collection of art, including works by Gainsborough, Titian, William Blake, Joshua Reynolds, van Dyck and JMW Turner who painted several views of the grounds and the house interior for his patron the 3rd Earl of Egremont.  The house sits in 700 acres of landscaped deer park with a couple of lakes.

Winkworth Arboretum

 The Arboretum is set in a steeply wooded valley leading down to a lake with its boathouse.

Pendean Farmhouse,  originally built in 1609 -
Weald and Downland Museum

This is an open air museum of some 70 acres where over 50 historic local buildings, threatened with demolition, have been painstakingly reconstructed in either a village or rural setting within the site.  A really interesting visit and well worth the full day it took to explore.

Our self-catering accommodation

We stayed in a converted oak-beamed barn on a farm near a small village.

Arundel Castle

We had glorious weather at the end of September when we were on a week's holiday in West Sussex. Arundel Castle was on our list of places to visit and, although we didn't take in the complete Castle tour, the Castle Keep, the 14th Century Chapel and the stunning gardens were enough to keep us occupied for the day.

Arundel Castle - pen and wash

Stone water pump - pen, watercolour and gouache

Arundel Castle

Water feature in the Castle gardens

Castle Gardens

The wild garden

Portrait sketch

Last week I spent a great day out with a friend from Australia, she was over here visiting family and catching up with old acquaintances.  We had glorious weather, although the afternoon proved a little too hot for both of us! We made the most of shaded walks through our local arboretum, but with so much news to catch up with there was no time for sketching.  Needing an image to add to my journal entry for the day, I decided to attempt a portrait of my friend from one of the few photos I took.

People drawing is not my forte, so I played safe and started the pencil sketch on drawing paper rather than directly in my journal.  To seal the pencil sketch I sponged over it with a light wash of liquid acrylic plus glazing liquid, then added some watercolour washes and gel pen. I am not sure anyone would recognise the "sitter", but it was good practice for drawing faces.

Pencil, acrylic, watercolour, gel pen
(approx. 2" x 3")

July sketch outing

We had reasonable weather for our sketch meeting in Faringdon Road Park on Saturday, with eight of us turning up with our art supplies. This fairly small park in the middle of town is mostly laid to grass, but around its perimeter are a few mature trees, a children's play area and a colourful flower border in one corner.  Most of us chose to concentrate on the buildings seen outside the park.

I am getting more attuned to using the Hahnemuhle Grey Book - this time I had previously lightly toned one of my pages with some blue/green acrylic paint, cleaning off my roller after using it for another project.  It worked quite well with my chosen view of a Victorian house, glimpsed above a flower bed of deep yellow lilies, rich red crocosmia and bright blue sea holly.

Park House (built 1876)
Pen and watercolour on acrylic toned background

Sketching in this historic area of Swindon has encouraged me to find out a bit more about its history.  Apparently, this land adjacent to the Railway Village was bought in 1844 by the Great Western Railway to provide a cricket field for the use of the local residents, as well as a general leisure area and the venue for annual fetes.  At one time it boasted a cricket pavilion, an entrance lodge, glasshouses and ornamental borders with fountains - all since disappeared.

Anilinky watercolour paints

Having recently rediscovered these paints in amongst my old art supplies, it was time to re-acquaint myself with their properties.  I used them for a couple of rough sketches in the Hahnemuhle Grey Book.  They are very intense and I found it difficult to get the subtle shades I am used to with my usual Winsor & Newton watercolours; they felt more like a cross between gouache and watercolour. I probably just need a bit more practice with them.

Anilinky watercolours overlaid with a few strokes of white oil pastel at the top of the image

Watercolour marker sketch in Burnt Umber, Anilinky watercolours,
highlights added with cream Posca pen

The twelve colours in the paint box

I will paint another colour chart and put it on my windowsill for a couple of months just to see how permanent the pigments are.

I have had these paints for quite some years, but I see they are still available on the internet and very inexpensively priced - in some adverts they are called "watercolour dyes" and there is a suggestion that they can be used on fabric!

Hidcote Manor Gardens

A glorious day out visiting this National Trust property in Gloucestershire - an Arts and Crafts garden comprising over 20 different garden "rooms", borders and lawns.

It was a riot of colour and there was so much to see, but I did manage a couple of quick pen sketches to which I added watercolour later at home.

One of two small pavilions at the end of the Red Borders

Access to these little buildings was not possible as they were undergoing conservation work, (I left out the workmen's bags of cement, buckets etc.).

Thatched barn in the courtyard