Coming up Roses

The roses at the Botanical Gardens are in full fabulous bloom and I've been wanting to go and spend some time with them and my watercolours all week. Today at last I went and found a lovely spot under a low hanging tree and happily splattered away. I must have blended well into the foliage, at least three wedding parties walked past and nobody seemed to spot me, even when I tried sketching one of the couples as they came down the steps in front of me.














I jotted down notes as I sketched:
'A wedding party nearby... a child laughing as if it's sides would split...
water splashing in fountains. Talking laughing getting louder
then just the fountains. Far away voices and thunder...
tiniest insects that bite like pinpricks... rose smells rose smells.'

By the Stream

Just back from sketchercising... I sat next to the stream that runs into the dam with my original little kit of watercolours and waterbrush. The morning sun was coming through the bright spring leaves, lots of dappled light and dark shadows, leaves, sticks and branches, rocks, water and reflections. The sound of the water trickling a very pleasant start to the day, though I couldn't get it to show up in my little sketch. While that dried I did two tiny sketches, squinting to try and just see bigger shapes and values instead of being distracted by all the many visual things going on. I could have quite happily spent all day there.
I'm reconsidering the waterbrush for this type of sketching - I'm sure I get far more colour and water on my towel than I do on the paper!

Virtually Published!

I worked out how to do this terrific Issuu application that Gabi Campanario, Isabel Fiadeiro and other Urban Sketchers have been making virtual books with. I used CorelDraw to place the sketches on different pages, add titles etc, then saved it as a PDF before uploading it to Issuu - Voila! - a book! I found I had to reduce the images to 100 dpi otherwise it takes forever to upload. To turn the pages you click on the little arrow on the right. To see a bigger version click on 'View in fullscreen' in the middle of the window.

Good dogs!

BFG and me went for a walk yesterday and found a Family Fun Day was on at the dam, put on by the local residents association. The sky was grey and rain threatening, so unfortunately it wasn't well attended, but we stayed to watch the show put on by the German shepherd club. Such happy dogs, trying their best to please their owners. The stuffed scarecrow guy came on and they all barked eagerly. He was the designated 'criminal' who had to pretend to attack people and grab handbags. He was well and truly dealt with by each of the protectors.
Then showing their gentler sides, children were asked to gather in the middle and take off their shoes, then the dogs sniffed out the other one of a pair of shoes given to them previously, amongst all the different smells. So clever!

Regrets I've had a few

A quick (almost) monochrome watercolour sketch of some lilies I bought last Saturday - a mixture of Stargazer pinks and white, that have been begging me to draw and paint their sculptural forms. But no time still for frivolities - and now they're almost over their striking best. The poor things have to be turfed outside every evening when my husband comes home as he's violently allergic to their powerful perfume, or pollen or something and instantaneously starts sneezing and wheezing and eye-watering.
Would you believe that the Urban Landscape oil painting workshop I was going to today, with Walter Voigt, had to be cancelled due to a number of people pulling out at the last minute? Here, where workshops by good, reputable artists are like nuggets of gold on a city pavement, I'm gobsmacked that this opportunity wasn't snapped up with glee by aspiring local painters. I've got all the materials he listed to bring - Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Terre Verde and Titanium White and a Cad. red Oil Bar, a range of flat brushes, canvas and a pile of photographs. I guess what I'll do is just try it on my own (when I have time - although I had set this day aside, as soon as it was called off, it filled up - how did that happen?) and if I ever get the chance, ask him for his critique and what his intentions were going to be...

Too Busy Bee

I am feeling rather scattered at the moment - too many different projects on the go at the same time, and all of them really demanding my undivided attention! I'm trying to prepare for the oil painting 'Urban Landscape' workshop on Saturday, but another bunch of work has come in - plus, plus, plus - I won't go into it all right now, that will be too much time on the computer when I need to be at my desk!
I've also been walking and sketching over the last week - ducks, geese and coots as you can tell below, and people out on the street, which you can read more about on Urban Sketchers if you're interested. I'm sorry to not be visiting and commenting much either on blogger-friends blogs. Hope to be over this frantic patch and back into gear soon!

Dibble dabble

This is the oil painting I've been toiling over - well, sometimes toiling and sometimes not. I intended for it to be an abstract sort of landscape, using a photo of a river scene as a base, but I wanted it to not be obviously representative, but to suggest a mood, movement, events possible or pending or past... [oil on canvas 102 x 50 cm]

First I laid down colour glazes, vague shapes. Please note this is not a 'how to' lesson - This is me fumbling around in the world of oils



The second stage is closest to the original reference and it reads as hills, sky, water, reeds etc, which I wanted to subdue,



so I turned it upside down to work on further. I like the way the reeds now look more like flames



The trouble is when to stop with this - I think I could go on endlessly painting, layering, scraping and scumbling and it could metamorphose into something completely different. I'm thinking now that the colours are too close to landscape colours - and too pretty. Hmm - shall I let rip with some cadmium orange..?

Gosh. The first version I uploaded of this image was in CMYK instead of RGB colour profile and this is how it appeared... one doesn't have to let rip, one can just fiddle endlessly with colour effects on the computer!