After a brief tour and a look at a Strawberry tree the eight of us separated out to start our sketches.
I started with a grapevine, the black grapes had caught the sunlight and were shiningwiht pinpricks of light. As I looked I found some wonderful shapes in the leaves. I started with some pastel colour to establish the light and darks (and to kill the white paper) before using a pencil to draw in some leaf detail.
After about 20 minutes I stopped and moved on. Walking round the estate I met some sheep who were giving me long hard stares so I spent about 10 minutes jotting down their shapes.
Inside the walled garden were some young vines with all the grapes dangling from the bottom of the plant. I made a small detailed drawing in pencil and then added some pastel to indicate the leaves.
After a rather loud gun shot from a bird scarier I moved on to the main court yard where I started to sketch the back of the barns that house the wine making machinery.
In my pursuit of watercolour perfection I didn’t notice the cat who had joined me on the table and finally to get my attention, laid across my sketchbook. So I felt the cat was worth a quick sketch too.
