I want to push the boundaries of what is possible with Watercolour during July. These are not finished pieces but a journey of discovery!
I’ve come to love text in images. This is a view of Warwick castle. It’s also a picture of my new toy, a Lyra water soluble graphite stick.
In watercolour we often forget to paint the big shapes and then work up the details. I have seen many paintings go wrong with a small brush and too much details from the start.
I use newspaper to establish the main shapes of the painting. I love the dark space under the tree to the right of the painting and also the dark bush on the top of the hill on the right. I’m not keen on the abrupt edged at the bottom of the bridge.
I’ve decided to completely ignore the Raspberry prompt today!
This is a complete experiment using a very random technique that I picked up from a youtube video entitled – Got PAINTERS BLOCK? Try this 5 MINUTE Loose Watercolor Landscape Painting Exercise, Lots of Fun!
I’m beginning to get excited about this project now. I was in a bit of a muddle yesterday and I didn’t know how to fill the month! I ended up drawing a lot of thumbnail black and white images of landscapes. I became very disillusioned as I knew I would not be able to do justice to the landscape.
And after a 5 minute exercise I am beginning to form some ideas for the rest of the week…
The World Watercolour Month idea belongs to Charlie O’Shields and you can find all the prompts to inspire paintings on the Doodlewash website.
Day 2 Diversion
I’ve gone very ‘off piste’ on this prompt and I am beginning to think I may deviate for the rest of the month. I love to experiment and I have ideas on incorporating collage into my watercolour world.
This prompt has really made me think about what is important about my art. Collage has become a big part of my artistic journey and I will be incorporating more randomness over the next four weeks! i will also be experimenting with wet-into-wet technique.
I went on a workshop with Jake Winkle who can perform absolute make with wet-into-wet technique. I also adore the work of Canadian artist Michael Solovyev who is an absolute master of the technique and is a featured artist on the Doodlewash website.
So Diversion for me is about moving watercolour into a new direction and enjoying the randomness!
I started out as a devout Water-colourist. Refusing to use black, leaving highlights instead of using white paint and generally having a miserable time with a medium that can’t be tamed!
Day 1 Prompt – Sunlit.
I try to harmonise my paintings these days, starting with an all over wash and then choosing to darken areas and get the watercolour contrast. This is an image of a interior of a caravan on the Heritage park in Stepaside in Wales.
When it is sunny in Wales the light really shines. I wanted to get the feeling of a late afternoon light streaming into the bedroom.
I’ve picked out the creases on the bed and perhaps been a bit harsh with the light in the bottom left of the picture. The shadows on the wall of the light and glass, just help break up the spaces.
I originally wrote this story when I was annoyed! I was tried of the isolation that had been imposed on me at hospital by infection control measures. I was born in the 70’s with ‘low-fat, high protein’ diets and the mortality age of someone with CF (Cystic Fibrosis) was 21.
This story is the train journey to the Royal Brompton Hospital for a 3 month review appointment. I was trying to highlight the distances that people with CF have to travel to a specialist centre and how tiring and challenging that journey can be.
CF infection control guidelines were updated in the early 2000’s for medical settings, and meant that people with CF had to be kept in isolation from each other. No longer able to sit in waiting rooms, talk in hospital corridors and in some cases live apart from siblings. A world apart from the 70’s and 80’s where all these things were possible and ideas and thoughts could be easily swapped between people living with the condition.
Infection Control Measures are scientifically researched measures that stops people with CF transferring their bugs to other people with CF. But it also creates a feeling of isolation and is not a workable solution in the real world.
The train journey illustrates how difficult this practice actually is and how easy is it to be exposed to coughs, sneezes and wheezes. And who knows if any of these people on the train have CF as well?
But Isolation, for me, stopped the camaraderie and shared experience of CF. I needed a new outlet…
Since about 2015, I have been a volunteer with the CF Trust, doing varied tasks as a lay reviewer of CF Research, lending my experience to help with pioneering research trial design and generally giving my voice to lived experience of Cystic Fibrosis. It’s given me back a way to talk and discuss CF with other people who have the condition, using video calls to describe what the CF landscape looks like and how Modulator drugs such as Kaftrio, are changing lives and giving hope to lots of people.
The volunteering work has changed the original plan for this story. Instead of being a piece created to show my annoyance I am now writing this to show the evolution of CF, a history of what was and what is now.
And with the hope that future generations of people with CF will one day be encouraged once again, to swap thoughts and their livid experiences of Cystic Fibrosis in person.
Pop back soon to read the next chapter in this story – The CF Clinic and how it has changed.
I sketched my first time with Urban Sketchers Reading in Wokingham at the weekend. I’ve driven, walked, and dined in Wokingham many times and I thought I knew the town. What surprised me was the variety of architecture and what inspired me was the wonky roof lines and the Tudor frames.
The group met outside the RYND café and dispersed into the town, some choosing to stay and sketch the town hall itself. I walked with a friend, Lesley, to Rose Street where I found a couple of small cottages with their famous wonky roofs and black wood frames. There was a lovely contrast of white render and old brick work. The red car was included at Lesley’s challenge request!
The weather was kind to us, and I was fortunate enough to catch some cast shadows in a small black and white drawing. I work mainly in ink and grey scale, but I felt the day deserved some colour so I used a pop of pastel to lift my drawings. It’s a messy medium but totally worth it!
We worked our way back to the town Hall passing other sketchers and made our way down the main high street where I decided to draw a tree outside Zizzi’s. It’s always an interesting to me to include street furniture! Street furniture to me is the bins, the comms cabinets, post boxes, wonky TV aerials and general clutter.
I found Lesley sketching a small shop front and we made our way back to the town hall for the throwdown. There was a wonderful display of artwork, and it was amazing to see what people had produced in 90 minutes. I collected my Urban Sketchers Stamp and we decided to go for a coffee.
We sat down in RYND and Lesley challenged me to draw as many people as possible, I think the double shot of coffee helped! Again, the sun created some beautiful shadows in faces, that for me, made it easier to draw.
It was a very enjoyable afternoon. I would recommend the Reading Urban Sketchers as they are a really nice, friendly bunch.
Top tips for urban sketching
Limit your equipment – a pencil, ink pen and a sketchbook are the essentials.
Don’t dither – When you find something that interests you stop and draw it.
Back to the wall – Find a quiet, sheltered corner if you don’t want people to speak to you.
This is another idea I am working on to create a finished collage image of some boats I saw at Tresaith, in Wales.
I’m using collage papers that I have made by printing on newspaper and then tearing to shape. The boat and block coloured paper are children’s sugar paper which has become a trademark for me, used against the black ink.
The wall was filled with rocks from the beach and cemented together. I think the paper I have used has got the right feeling. I’m never sure what to do with the sky in these images and I think the white paper works. What do you think?
This is one of my favourite alley ways in Saundersfoot, it’s the one that leads to the first tunnel through the rocks coming out of Saundersfoot, heading to Wiseman’s bridge.
It leads though to a carpark and Coppet Hall Beach. The lovely lampposts are littered along the route, which follows the path of the old mining operation. I have not quite done them justice and I intend to use this sketch for a final piece.
The main road in Saundersfoot has brick work representing the old railway line. The tourist centre has been recently renovated into holiday lets, that overlook the harbour of Saundersfoot.
I’ve painted some watercolours of the shops in Saundersfoot, including my favourite Sue’s Bakery. Selling homemade cakes and rolls. The rolls are fantastic. The cakes sublime.
Sometimes it’s easier than others with the doodlewash prompts.
Clip was the prompt – and this is a bulldog clip. When we used to use paper and store documents you would always grab a Bulldog clip. I wonder how many of todays children would even recognise this item!
Everything was paper and notebooks when I was at school, stark contrast today when my own son uses computers and hands homework online or on scrappy bits of paper.
We quizzed the geography teacher on the standard of homework and he relied, ‘Once you have accepted homework on one scrappy bit of paper its easier to accept another…’
In my school days that would not have been allowed. It would have been at least a 15 minute detention and at worst an hour. Now it’s – well done! How times have changed.
This weeks prompts from Doodlewash, could not be further away from my comfort zone of prompts!
I’m not a big flower painter and I envy people who can make flowers look beautiful. I almost tried a botanical watercolour course but level of detail was too much for me to fathom. Botanical painters, who build up wonderful layers of colour, I salute you.
This is a ham-fisted (what a wonderful phrase), Rose with buds in collage. There is some magnificent marks of dry brush work on the petals of the flower and some directional brush work. But that my friends, is the extent of my flower painting power!
