Doodlewash November

Welcome to another response to Doodlewash month! I love the mindfulness nature of drawing and creating images. Doodlewash prompts for November look very challenging...

Lets start with Acorn...This is my simple response!

You can follow all the daily action on Instagram !

Whistling throw

 

Seeing through on a promise to Samuel I brought him a toy for being good. Debs was in the toilet and I was guarding the handbag and stuff. The whistling toy was just inside the shop and I gave Samuel the money to buy it himself. I could just about see the shop counter and he managed brilliantly.

On the beach the whistling toy worked great, but it was a really hot day and we kept dipping our feet in the sea to cool dow

Debs drank coke leaning against the rocks.

 

Coppet beach location sketches

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.

High tide

 

The town of Tenby is split into a north and south beach. The yellow sands stretch a far a the eye can see almost drawled by the towering cliffs that the town sits on. Even the holiday brochures highlight the magnificent beaches.

It was with high expectations that we took our locally made pasties to that wonderful beach. Which seemed everso slighlty over crowded. It was high tide at Tenby and the beach had all but disappeared. We found a very small place to sit and eat lunch as the hundred odd steps back to the top of the cliffs seemed like an incredibly long journey.

A sketch of the steps that I did after lunch, listening to two medical students discussing their morning...

 

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.

Dave had made some money finding car keys, but what he really dreamed of was Dorset Gold!

During our Epic coastal walk – which might have been as far as 6 miles! – you get to see all sorts of people.

Nothing amuses me more, (well other than people falling off of water skies), than watching people using metal detectors on the beach. Pecking around like chickens searching for feed, finding only bear cans and metal buttons.

The National Geographic website can only be blamed for encouraging these people, follow this link to see the most unusual finds including a model T ford – I Bet the AA even managed to restart it, after they emptied the carburettor of sand.

Sandbanks to Bournemouth…and back again

In 2010 Debs and I had a baby boy and desperate for a holiday we managed to blag a stay at my uncles flat in Sandbanks.

Samuel was only 6 months old and couldn’t sit up on his own. We took him on the train to Swanage and foolishly we walked from Sandbanks to Bournemouth and back again. It didn’t look far on the map but as it turns out it was a long way.

Samuel slept most of the way to Bournemouth and I was able to dabble in my past time of urban sketching and people watching. On the way back Samuel woke up and I remember carrying him most of the way back as he wouldn’t settle in the pram.

The following posts are the imagined stories of the people that I sketched/watched on the day.

Below are the initial sketches…

A love affair with Bournemouth

 

Our love affair with Bournemouth started when Debs and I went to see Paul Merton’s tribute to the silent Films at the Pavillion theatre.

Separately we had both visited Bournemouth – Debs on a camping trip and I went with a friend on a day trip while I was attending a steam rally in Fordingbridge.

There is something very British about Bournemouth. I think it is the tea pot drinking eccentric Englishman with his stiff upper lip wearing his socks in sandals with pride on the seafront outside his beach hut. It’s a place for old people, young people, cats and dogs, hankys on heads and string vests.

If it’s possible, Bournemouth is my adopted home town.

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

Lollies and hats

Having a sketch book is a liberating experience in my opinion. You can sketch anything without having to worry about spoiling expensive papers. In the next 2 sketches I have attempted to create portraits of Sam and my mum at Woodcote steam rally.

 

The final sketch with all the finished detail. From the initial painting below I have looked to create impact by strengthening the light and dark passages.i have added darker tones next to the highlights and added detail to the shadow areas. This helps to enhance the contrast an drake the image appear to have depth.

Initial washes to establish main colours and tones.

While this sketch is not an accurate representation of my mum it has given me some valuable information that I can use to create a painting in the future.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Pimms at Woodcote Steam Rally

What's better than a pimms on a hot summer day? A pimms served from a converted mini van.

Initial wash of watercolour.

The original pen sketch.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

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.

 

Posted with Blogsy

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!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Little and large

Sketched from a photo this is the first stage of a painting I may attempt in the future. I find it is always worthwhile making quick sketches (this one took 10minutes) so that when I'm in the mood to paint a watercolour I have something to paint. Too many times in the past I have been in the mood to paint but I have wasted time looking for inspiration.

The original photo was taken on Ryde beach on the isle of wight and when I use photos I generally only use pictures I have taken of places I have been. That way I can try and capture something of the mood when the picture was taken.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Appley Tower, IOW

This is a sketch of Appley tower on the Isle of Wight.

 

Posted with Blogsy

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.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Worlds littlest strongman

 

We took Samuel for a walk through the local woods. Like most little boys he likes to pick up sticks and crash through the bracken. While we were resting on a seat admiring the view Samuel found himself the biggest log and started to lift it over his head. Rather than take the stick home we confined him to hid it so that we could use it next time we went to the woods. Perhaps it's still there!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Beach huts at Appley Park, Ryde

Sometimes when I need creative inspiration I buy new art materials. This sketch of Appley Park in Ryde uses quinacridone red and gold plus Windsor violet. The colours mix in interesting and unexpected ways producing an unrealistic but bright result. The lights and darks will help me to produce a finished watercolour.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Digger

Quick sketch ready for a watercolour of Samuel on a toy digger from our holiday in Cornwall.

 

Posted with Blogsy

What you looking at?

 

My son and his little friend Chloe looking at something at Chloe’s parents wedding. I always look for different things to take pictures of when I am at gatherings, people’s expressions can be really great. I have tried to simplify the faces down to basic light and dark areas. I think this has worked apart from Chloe’s eyes which I wish I had not made so detailed. I am also a bit unsure of the proportions of Samuels arm!

The original Sketchbook entry 9 May 2012