Urban Sketchers Swindon

 The first meeting of our urban sketching group for almost two years.  A very cold, but mostly bright morning. Just over a dozen turned up and sketched in the grounds of the Richard Jefferies Museum (the cottage was the birthplace of this well-known Victorian nature writer).

Pilot G-tec pen and watercolour

Sketchbook Challenge - 29th and 30th January

The last two of this challenge. I'm glad I managed to complete it, although occasionally hurrying to get my day's contribution down just before midnight!

Sketchbook Challenge 27th and 28th January

 

Faces - 27th January

Doorways - 28th January

Mini watercolour and pen doodles 29 and 30

 

A couple more of my mini floral doodles -

watercolour and coloured pen (3" square)

Perhaps it's time to start a different series, although I must admit I've been enjoying these.  On occasion,  attempting to think up imaginary blooms has been a bit more difficult than I anticipated.

Mini watercolour doodles 25 and 26

 

Fantasy Flowers (both 3" square)
watercolour and coloured pens

Watercolour and pen doodles 24 and 25

 

Both 3" square in watercolour Moleskine
Watercolour, coloured pens and a touch of gouache

Mini watercolour doodles 21 and 22

 

Both 3" square - watercolour, pen plus a touch of gouache

Some of this series are based on past studies of plants, while others and purely imaginary.

More Cotswold sketching

Pen, watercolour and gouache 

We managed to pick another good day for sketching this week.   A trip out to Miserden (a charming estate village hidden in the Cotswolds between Cirencester and Birdlip).  An early pub lunch outside the Carpenters Arms, a wander round the village, a bit of sketching and then a short but strenuous walk into the valley and around the lake.  Unfortunately, the manor house gardens are only open Friday to Sunday at the moment, but a good excuse to make another visit sometime.

The pub car park has been converted into a larger, socially distanced outdoor eating area, but there is still a hitching post for the horses!

Cerney House Gardens

With wet and windy weather forecast for several days, we managed to arrange our sketch outing

on the sunniest day of the week.  After exploring this delightful Cotswold garden I settled down to attempt this distant view of the pagoda.  I was rather daunted by all the greens and nearly gave up, but the subsequent pen work helped to bring some order to the chaos.

Watercolour, gouache and pen 8" x 6"

Another sketch outing

Another sketching trip with a couple of friends to a farm cafe in the Cotswolds, complete with adjacent alpaca herd.  We had booked a table for lunch in the delightful courtyard garden and spent a pleasant few hours chatting and sketching.  

The original drawing and initial watercolour washes were done in situ, but I planned to add a bit more detail when I got home. I made a complete hash when I tried to add a background sky, then added more gouache which made it even worse!  The solution - use a strip of the same colour paper from a blank page, cut round the shapes of the umbrella and background foliage and stick it over the offending area.  Total disaster averted.

Pen, watercolour, gouache, wax pastel in
Hahnemuehle cappuccino sketchbook

INKTOBER 31st - Finished!

I managed to get my last page finished just before the stroke of midnight!

I much prefer the first side which is more cohesive. The background of the second side proved to be too busy and distracting, although it did make me experiment more with the ink based products in an effort to clarify the sketches.

The last page and title page (Uniball Eye pen plus gold gel pen)

The complete second side

The first side

The folded book giving me 32 sides measuring 4" x 6"

Inktober 29th - 30th

For these two pages I did my drawings on white sketch paper and collaged them onto my background - why didn't I think of that before?

Imagined faces using a dark grey fine liner pen; and on the right I used a black fine liner with walnut ink washes.

A nice surprise from Hahnemuhle in the post this week - an A6 beige toned watercolour book and some brushes.  I am certainly looking forward to working on this paper as I previously enjoyed using both their grey and cappucino sketchbooks.

Inktober 25th - 28th

Zentangle in black ink
Evening primrose sketch (black ink with gold ink background)

Clematis (black ink, felt tip and gel pens)
Orchid (black ink and acrylic inks)

My enthusiasm and inspiration is beginning to wane a bit, particularly as I am not liking working on this background, but only three more days to go.

Inktober 19th - 20th

 For the rose sketch I used acrylic inks both with a dip pen for the drawing and for the colour washes.  The barn was sketched with waterproof fine liners in grey and black, with added washes of walnut ink.

Inktober 15th - 16th and a Sculpture Park visit.

I am halfway there!  I have completed one side of my fold sketchbook.  

Last week my daughter and I visited a sculpture park in the Cotswolds.  It was a reasonably fine day and I took plenty of photos (there were well over 100 sculptures both large and small) so a couple provided me with subjects for my 15th and 16th sketches. 

This is the full, unfolded side.  I have now reversed the folds and started on the other side for the remainder of the month.

Inktober 7th - 8th

Pumpkins seen in a cottage garden on my walk.  A small sketch of hawthorn berries plus a couple of prints from the leaves using walnut ink.

Inktober sketches - 3rd and 4th

Fuchsia from the garden and spindle berries from my walk.

 

Garden concertina book

In an earlier post, I displayed my sketch for this concertina book.

I transferred the basic layout onto Bockingford hot pressed watercolour paper (30" x 7"), added fine liner pen details then watercolour washes.  I was pleased with the watercolour, but there was something not quite right and it was a while before I realised the outbuilding looked far too large compared to the rest of the drawing. Time for a rethink.

A couple of coats of gesso and another of white acrylic eventually allowed me to redraw the offending building and adjust the adjacent features.  However, in order to integrate this repainted area with the rest I had to add some acrylic in other parts of the image.

For the front cover I used part of a map of the area.

A bike ride, breakfast and an urban sketch

Most mornings, weather permitting,  I go out for a 3 or 4 mile cycle ride before breakfast.  With the warm weather we've had recently, I decided to combine my trip out with some sketching at a local park, taking a yoghurt and a piece of fruit to keep my energy levels up.

The only seat which provided the best view of the house within the parkland was a tree stump - in full sun and shared with a colony of ants - so my picnic and sketch were rather hurried.  However, it was good to get back into plein air sketching and I was able to enjoy a leisurely wander through the rest of the grounds before heading home (and a second breakfast).  Later in the day, temperatures of over 30 degrees were recorded so I was glad I took advantage of the slightly cooler hours.

Lydiard House (approx. 8" x 4")
Pen, watercolour and gouache in the Hahnemuhle Cappucino sketchbook

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")