Colour Mix

Colour Mix, a photo by noriko.stardust on Flickr.

Colour study of Quin. Gold and blues (French Ultramarine and Cerulean). I uses to think quin gold is a difficult colour to use but very recently found out it makes very nice greens. It might make a way onto my palette soon.

Goldfinch

Carduelis carduelis

A quick sketch of goldfinch from a photograph. Ballpoint pen, Watercolour
and Coloured pencils.

Whippet Drawing

It was a fine day in London (at long last), so I took a walk to nearby green, and then had a cup of coffee in a cafe. There was a beautiful dog there so I drew her on the back of a serviette - I was not carrying a sketch pad. I coloured it in with watercolour paint after I got back home.

This is the dog. Her contour looks like it's been drawn with a fine point pen. Her owner told me she's a whippet. With such a short coat, she must get pretty cold in winter.

After painting the dog I started to play around with paint as I realise there was a red in the palette that I hardly ever use (Quin red).

Off to India

I am about to go off to India, the land of curry.

My cat Bubbles wants to come with me.

Well, I don't think you would like curry that much, Bubbles.

I'm looking forward to vivid and bright colours in India.

That will make a lot of differene flying from wintery London!

Just been back from Normandy



I've just come back from Brittany/Normandy holiday, so here are some journal entries I kept while on holiday.

 

 

My usual Travel Wardrobe Drawing.  Although it's summer month, you can't be sure if it's going to be warm all through in Normandy so I packed thin wool jumper as well, which is not drawn here.  I also took a thin down liner - I was glad I did.  I didn't have an opportunity to wear the silk dress - it wasn't warm enough.

 

 

First day was spent in Dinan, a beautiful medieval town in Brittany.  A lot of half-timber architecture still remain in the central town.  The people are very nice and friendly, too.  It's a lovely place to spend a little longer than just one night... Painting buildings is not my strong point so I didn't manage to paint it on the spot - maybe I'd try later from a photo.

 

Instead I drew this tourist train - just because I was blocking its path as I was trying to enter the hotel parking space, and people who were waiting to get on the train was staring at me.  I haven't driven for a year, and I was on a rented car, driving on the right side - all this made me quite nervous to drive into a narrow opening of the parking area...well that was a little adventure for sure.

 

 

 

We'd taken a river boat trip on the river Rance.  There was a guide on the boat but he was speaking in French so I couldn't really understand what he was telling us.  With my rudimentary French, I picked up words like "Animal", "Boat", "Pull" "Like this".  He was showing a round belt-like object and put it around his shoulders as he explained.  Not knowing the history of towboat, I was wondering what sort of animal can pull a boat "like this",  imagining a mysterious water creature pulling a boat in the river like the one I drew in the page.

 

 



 

...but then it became clear as the guide was showing a copy of an old photograph of a boat being pulled by an animal ON LAND and my friend was explaining the history of towboat.  So I also drew the correct version of a boat being pulled.

 

The holiday journal to be continued...