Out and about with raptors

Hello again!

I visited the Raptor Foundation a couple of days ago (dodging the downpours and sweltering in the very hot sunny intervals...). Here are a few sketches.

All done with Faber-Castell Pitt pens. Owls are great models for the most part - they stay fairly still! I'll be going back soon to practise some more, and I'll try to draw some of the other raptors. It's a great way to spend an afternoon :-)

Sketching from photos

Trying to keep in the good habit of regular sketching, so I've been doing some from photo refs, sketched from the computer monitor.

Both A4, blue biro on sketchbook cartridge-type paper - my niece and nephew :-)

Out and about down on the farm

Last weekend was Open Farm Sunday, and as one of the stallholders at our local farmers' market was joining in I decided to go along.

Cambria Farm is near Ely in Cambridgeshire, and they raise rare-breed pigs along with sheep and chickens. I took a stack of photos (just how cute are piglets??) but as it was fairly busy, it took a while for me to pluck up the courage to break out the sketchbook!

Anyway, the sketches on the day included these ones:

This is an Oxford Sandy and Black sow enjoying a snooze...

And these two pages are of Gloucester Old Spot piglets, also snoozing - the only time at which I had any hope of sketching them! The watercolour washes were added later, as time was of the essence for grabbing the ink sketches.

I'm now regretting that I didn't do more... a lesson for the future I think...

Some life drawing and a bird sketch

Hello again!

First off, a sketch from a photo ref, a jackdaw in the back garden.

Faber Castell Pitt Artists marker pens, A4 sketchbook. These marker pens were a little treat I bought myself, and I'm loving using them. Thoroughly enjoyed drawing this one!

Next, the life drawing class that I attend has started up again; here's the pick of what I managed at the last session...

Faber Castell Pitt Artists marker pen, A2, 15 min. Didn't quite get the twist of the torso, and the head looks a bit small, but it was a great pose and I enjoyed using the marker pen.

Pencil, A2, 35 min.

Thanks for looking :-)

Out and about again

Had a very lovely afternoon the other day with a friend; we chatted and sketched, then patronised one of the tea rooms in town and enjoyed a delicious slice of carrot cake. Only got slightly rained on...

Both subjects I've done before.

And from a short visit to my family, a couple of sketches of some of my nephew's toys... couldn't resist the colours!

Water birds in watercolour

Hello again!

One of the artists that I most admire (and there are many) is Jean Haines. I find her watercolour paintings just fascinating. I've been reading her first book, How to paint colour and light in watercolour, and decided I'd have a go based on sketches of some of my own ref photos.

 Grey heron, quarter sheet

Little egret, quarter sheet.

And the sketches I based them on:

One of my bad habits in watercolour is impatience, so I decided to paint these two at the same time - one could be drying while I was painting the other, and I switched between them to let the washes dry. Cunning plan, I'll do that again I think! And both were painted with no preliminary drawing - something I never imagined I'd be doing...

I think I'll be buying Jean's new book too...

A quick edit - I've just noticed that this is my 200th post! Fabulous!

More out and not so about

Hello all

Well, has summer finally arrived here in the UK? I hope so. Today was lovely, so I got all my work done early so that I could sit in the garden with my sketching stuff and a G&T... So out, but nor very far afield!

Both done with a black (permanent) kuretake sketching pen, with colour added with my staedtler fineliner markers, which are water soluble, letting you push the colour around with the addition of a drop of water... Good fun!