Tag Archives: @womensart1

Old And New

Here’s another sketch I did on holiday in Porto, Portugal last week. It was very hot (for me anyway) and Husb and I took refuge in the beautiful Crystal Palace garden near our little hotel. There was loads to sketch there but I settled on this view of an old statue, probably 19th century, inContinue reading “Old And New”

Strange Trees In The Dark.

I was so taken with the odd pollards in the Porto park, Jardim da Cordoaria, that I went back the next evening with my landscape Khadi sketchbook and Derwent Inktense blocks and spent a while drawing the strange trees in a mix of natural night-time darkness and harsh orange/yellow street lighting.

Pollards In A Park In Porto

Husb and I went away for a few days, which is why I haven’t blogged recently. It’s our first trip outside the UK since before Covid19 and to be honest I was nervous, but we met up with family from different parts of the world in Porto in Portugal and it was so lovely. TheContinue reading “Pollards In A Park In Porto”

Let The Water Do The Work.

Here’s another little watercolour from my adult teaching session this week. I’ve been emphasising that the important thing about watercolours is actually the water, letting the image develop as it dries. We flooded the stretched Bockingford paper with clean water then using a very wet brush, “dropped” the wet pigment onto the paper without overworkingContinue reading “Let The Water Do The Work.”

Teaching Watercolours – The Reveal

Today was a fun day. Last week’s adult education group prepared some samples of different watercolour effects but they were still wet when they left (below), so today we had the big reveal! It’s always exciting and these techniques often have that WOW factor! We used Winsor & Newton Cotman half pans onto Bockingford watercolourContinue reading “Teaching Watercolours – The Reveal”

Setting The Type.

I spent a happy couple of hours at Swansea Print Workshop this afternoon, experimenting with the vintage wooden typefaces to design my next little experiment in letterpress. I had more or less settled on this one but then I couldn’t find any quoins to hold it together, so I’ll have to go back to finishContinue reading “Setting The Type.”

#StandingStoneSunday: The Sketchbook Stones

When I was travelling around South Wales studying standing stones with pre-historian Dewi Bowen and filmmaker Melvyn Williams, I generally worked onto large sheets of prepared paper. But sometimes I travelled light with just a brown paper sketchbook and it gave me a different insight into what I was drawing, I focused more on theContinue reading “#StandingStoneSunday: The Sketchbook Stones”

#Caturday: The Golden One.

It’s #Caturday Saturday once again and I’ve been playing with a picture of Sparta Puss in Adobe Photoshop. I put the photo through a Coloured Pencil filter and then cranked up the Saturation to create this golden effect.

Teaching Watercolour Basics

I did some more adult teaching this week, I’m running a short course in watercolour basics, covering a range of simple and accessible techniques. The group started with stretching some watercolour paper with paper gumstrip (learnt last week), sectioning it up with masking tape and producing 4 samples of different techniques. This is the demonstrationContinue reading “Teaching Watercolour Basics”