I've decided to do another month of Doodlewash challenges. Not sure what inspired me but I do like daily painting. Todays image is of my new character the Bloops. These little guys will get into to all sorts of mischief. This is the prompt - Reflection.
Monday, 1 February 2021
Thursday, 7 January 2021
A New Year of Ideas
Happy New Year everyone. I have decided to start the year by publishing 3 video tutorials using my watercolour technique. It's a fairly simple 4 step process.
1) drawing
2) initial wash
3) add dark tones
4) details
The equipment I use is simple, a matchstick pen similar to the one Edward Wesson would have used, A large mop brush and a limited watercolour colour palette consisting of warm and cool colours - windsor yellow, quinacridone gold, colbolt blue, ultramarine blue, burnt Sienna and permanent rose.
All the details are in the video.
If you enjoyed the video please subscribe to my Youtube channel and give me a like.
Saturday, 6 May 2017
Little red ice cream van
Walking from Wisemans bay to Saundersfoot is hungry work. We stopped daily at the little Ed ice cream van and sat to watch the tide. It wa a handy half way stop to the heritage park where we were staying.
The pathway itself is the old narrow gauge railway that took coal from hertiage park to the harbour at Saundersfoot. I imagine the pathway has been made wider with the sea defence, but the two tunnels that you pass through on the way are 100 per cent original. Apart from the LEDs in the path.
Location sketch of Wisemans bay.
Crocs on rocks
It was a windy day when we stopped on the south Tenby beach in front of the harbour. The tide was coming in and the jelly fish were collecting on the sand.
It turns out I'm not great with heights and when three young lads stated to climb the rock on the beach I became queezy. The fact they were wearing crocs didn't help. Who wears crocs to climb? Bear feet would propbably be better.
Fortunately they made it to the top and down again without any incident. I'm thinking of buying some crocs to see if they help my fear of heights.
Sunday, 14 August 2016
Paper planes
| Paper planes sketch |
Oscar and his little brother were frequent visitors to our cabin.
To stop them reengineering Sam's Lego and because we had started origami in the evening - I made three paper planes for racing across the room. I mean where is the danger?
Chaos quickly ensued as the first plane landed in the lampshade. The competition soon changed to who could land the plane in the lampshade.
Swiftly followed by, 'oops my plane has landed in the washing up bowl...and it now flies like a brick.
Saturday, 13 August 2016
Polka dots
Being lost for words is not something of which I suffer, but while Debs was off buying ice cream - lost for words was how I was...
Walking up the beach at first I thought 'how very daring a young woman deciding to brave the elements and throw caution to the wind, perhaps a bit of skinny dipping.
Sadly the closer the woman got, and the more curious I got , the truth became more scary.
The woman who had looked young, became old. The caution to the wind became a rather small pair of flesh toned polka dot bikini bottoms. Swiftly followed by the heavey pounding of gigantic chubby legs.
However she seemed happy.
Thursday, 24 October 2013
River at Boscastle
I created this painting from a sketch I drew outside the national trust visitor centre in June 2012. I was struck by the way the afternoon sun had lit up the buildings on the opposite bank. It had just rained and the sky behind the houses and above the hill in this view was black with stormy clouds.
I used this sketch to create a stylised contemporary art work. I love the art of Neil Meacher a member of the Royal Watercolour society and I have tried to create a work in my style using his techniques. The image can be viewed here.
It was hard to imagine the devastation that was witnessed by the flood of 2004. The house in the centre of my image was completely destroyed and rebuilt to with-stand future flooding. The rebuilt car park was also raised 12 foot to help with-stand a future flood.
This is the second time I have been to Boscastle I recorded my first visit back in 1990. You can read about it here.
Below is the original sketch book sketch and studio painting
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Lollies and hats
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
Pimms at Woodcote Steam Rally
Saturday, 27 July 2013
Parrots and bouncy castles at Woodcote Steam Rally
The parrot man is the UK's only travelling parrot show. I forgot to make a note of his website but he was very entertaining, especially when his untrained parrot bit him. On a more serious note the parrot man owns a parrot sanctuary where he re-homes birds. He goes round schools and entertains the children.
So with an airshow, classic cars, traction engines and the parrot man, what did Samuel like the most at Woodcote steam rally? The bouncy castle.
There were 2 bouncy castles and for a few quid you got 15 minutes but a notice quite clearly said that everyone must pay with no exceptions. I over heard one parent say, 'I'm not paying 3 quid to get my son off of that and the bloke knows it, he's on to a good thing.'
Samel enjoyed the bouncy castles and it did prove difficult to get his attention to get him off. And no I didn't pay. I waited patiently for half an hour. The I bribed him with an ice cream.
Friday, 26 July 2013
Woodcote steam rally
Years ago I used to visit the woodcote steam rally as an exhibitor with a traction engine that my dad built. In recent years I have become a regular paying visitor. There are 2 types of weather at woodcote, hot and wet. This year I was lucky that the weather was hot. Too hot.
At the same time as the steam rally there is usually an airshow that is kind enough to do a fly past over the woodcote rally. This year was the turn of spitfires and a Lancaster bomber. Samuel was a bit concerned that the planes would be too noisey and actually hid under a table at lunch to avoid the noise.
More interesting, from my point of view, than the planes was the expressions on people's faces and the way people were using their phone cameras to take pictures. It would seem gone are the days when people shield their eyes from the sun to watch the action, it's now who can take a picture and put it on Facebook first!
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Friday, 12 July 2013
Buckets of water
Using my three experimental colours (quinacridone red and gold plus Windsor violet), I aimed to find the lights and darks in my sketch of Samuel on the beach at Ryde. The nice thing about these colours is, they are all transparent and rarely, for me, produce muddy colours. I used a layering technique to get the darks and the final colour I layered in was q.gold to add brightness around the image - particularly on the back of Sams jacket to enrich the orange.











