New Drawings

I've been sorting through sketch books and drawing recently.

There is something quite satisfying about a simple line drawing, I often do them in ink.
I might use these as reference for other works or colour them in some way, but at the moment I like them as simple lines.

Some taken from my Venice holiday images and two Buddha heads.

Studying Sunflowers

My daughter Ruth bought a lovely bunch of sunflowers this week. I have been enjoying looking at them, taking a few photos and doing some sketches.

We also had a sunflower self seeded in the path at the front of the house, it seemed right to leave it to flower.

As the weather is getting colder, the sunflowers bring a sense of warmth and summer in the house.

I used my water colour pencils and pen and ink for the sketches and some digital processing for the photographs.

Winter landscape sketches

I have started to do some quick sketches this year, with pen and ink and water soluble pencil crayons. I'll add watercolours and other mixed media too as I continue to make a sketch a day.                          

The main theme for these works will be trees either from life, photos or from my imagination, so I can explore a range of ideas, but in a fairly spontaneous way.

I'm posting some of these pictures from my tablet, so I'm not sure how the format is going to look like. But it makes posting a bit easier for thse pieces.

Sketches of Margate harbour and beach, England

I have been back down to my local beach enjoying the bit of warmer weather we have been having lately.The colours in the sea were Mediterranean in places, gorgeous blues and greens.I took some photos and walked along the beach to the harbour.

I am always struck by how the colour of the sea changes constantly, it's one of my real pleasures and I can see why so many people love to be near the coast anywhere.

There are usually a few people around who are just looking at the sea like me, gazing at the waves and the ebb and flow of the water. We often just acknowledge to each other how much we enjoy our sea gazing, and sometimes I'm told about another beach. Apparently Broadstairs harbour is a great place for watching stormy seas and high waves.

I sat on the new steps by the harbour and focused on the patterns made by the sea and sand on the beach. I'd brought some water soluble coloured pencils and made some quick sketches of the beach.  I was just looking for the abstract qualities and the line of the forms left by the water and drying sand.

The paper cockled a bit with the water, but I was happy with the idea and will follow up with some more sketches and paintings.

A lone man came out with a shovel, I think he was digging for bait.