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| Gunthorpe Toll House 5 September 2015 Ink and Watercolour Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook 20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5") |
This is another view of the Toll House at Gunthorpe. It is one of my favourite subjects and has already appeared in a couple of posts (see Reflections and Shelford Group of Artists Easter Exhibition 2012).
It is the most ambitious subject I've painted outside and it provided an introduction to some of the pleasures of painting in the great outdoors. Usually I sit on a bench or the ground, but this time I stood and used the top of a fence post as a shelf. It was a bright autumn day, but after 45 minutes I was cold. The wind spotted my situation and gave me some exercise by blowing my palette off the fence post into a grasping patch of brambles and nettles. A bit later a bulldog clip flew off the sketchbook and cleared two fences to land in some more nettles, growing in a cow pat next to some angry geese.
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| Conker in Colour 10 September 2015 Ink and Watercolour Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook 14.0cm x 20.3cm (5.5" x 8.0") |
Conkers (horse chestnuts) and their shells are another of my favourite subjects. They have so many contrasts: soft/hard, reflective/matt, dark/light, smooth/ spiky, bright greens/muted browns. What more can you ask for?
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| Conker - Black and White 15 September 2015 Graphite Pencil Winsor & Newton A6 Heavy Weight Sketch Book 14.8cm x 10.5cm (5.9" x 4.1" ) |
The sloe berries are my first experiment with Marc Taro Holmes’ (Citizen Sketcher) three pass watercolour technique from The Urban Sketcher. The three passes work from light to dark colours and from larger to smaller shapes. Marc calls the steps Tea, Milk and Honey to reflect the thickness of the washes. The three passes correlate to the three steps of his three pass sketching approach (see May 2015 Sketches).
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| Sloes Foragin 12 September 2015 Watercolour Stillman & Birn Beta Series Sketchbook 20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5") |
The sloes looked pretty ropey after the first pass and didn't really come together until I added the final touches.
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| Flowers From Sally 21 September 2015 Watercolour and Gouache Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook 14.0cm x 20.3cm (5.5" x 8.0") |
The flowers and pepper are also based on the three pass approach. The flowers were a gift from Elaine’s cousin Sally, but we bought the pepper for ourselves.
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| Red Pepper 5 September 2015 Ink and Watercolour Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook 20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5") |
It is hard to believe I'm three quarters of the way through the challenge to draw on every day in 2015. The year is passing so quickly and drawing every day is turning out to be more of a luxury than a challenge.
