River sketch, on the Lee

Pencil crayon on the canal 2

Pencil crayon on the canal

pencil crayons

Using my new box of pencil crayons on the road to Ilford

Oils

Flirting with oils again! Painting autobiographical scenes in mediaeval style borders on a piece of wood that Matt found in the street. I sized it with acrylic gloss gel. Must get some transparent acrylic gesso, see if it makes a difference. I'm using only one brush, maybe that's a mistake but it makes a kind of naive folk art style, which when it comes to this kind of work, is my style. It's all experimentation at the moment. Well this is.

I was looking at medieval illustrations from one source and saw that borders are made of objects magnified whereas the scene of the saint enclosed was in miniature as if viewed by a telescope. I found this interesting and started to apply it to scenes from my life, but soon forgot and began making my borders out of symbolic material that could be associated with each scene, in my life anyway. For example, on one outdoor scene of the boat and solly I put the sun moon and clouds to signify how 'out of doors' having the boat makes us feel, which is what we like about it, even in winter. Well one of the things we like about it.

Sketch with wildflower from Les Pennes

Insects on holiday

Flowers on holiday

Landscape - oil pastel and pencil

Travel sketches

I think oil pastels and pencil is a good combination for travel. I like to use pencil on top of the oil pastel as well as oil pastel on top of pencil. Makes the colour look less like it has just come out of the box. Generally, a hard, HB or harder pencil is what I want for this kind of work. I love the texture as the pencil goes into the oil and the paper to make a depression and also the flecks of oil pastel making little colour spots across the paper.

Holiday sketches - cows

Holiday sketches - details - wood, flowers

Massif Central - more sketches of the countryside around Les Pennes

Two sleepy dogs

Here are the two dogs at Les Pennes, sleeping, sleeping, the old and the young. Sleepy in the sunshine.

Les Pennes

Just back from a lovely few days as the guest of Patrick Dreux and Christiane in Les Pennes in the Massif Central.

This is the first of a few sketches to come!

More Bolton pix - Deane Clough

This pencil sketch has been made from a vintage postcard.

Blanaid imagined Matt in a pair of her flowery shorts

She asked me to draw him so I did

Imagine how we can get the pears down from the tree

A sketch by my granddad

I love this biro style of his.

Dorset

I coloured in one of the Dorset sketches for Joanna's parents. I'll give it to her soon.