Asleep on the beach…

I need to get back into painting having taken a break…if you don’t use it you lose it!

Hmmmm….

Alone in the coffee shop…

When I dropped in for a coffee (and a very late lunch) after visiting my accountant in the local town I was the sole person in there. The two girls running the bakery shop and tea/coffee bar were busy to-ing and fro-ing, tidying and sorting. No-one to draw but the shelves and the last of the bread and rolls…

Darning underpants…

I had a friend who was some 50 years older than me. When I first knew her she was in her 80s and was a mosaicist – still working. She was a real character – and probably always had been! One of her stories was of darning the curate’s underpants…When she was much younger she had ‘fallen in love’ with the local curate – who was married. His wife, sensing that Henrietta was smitten, decided to put her off. She invited Henrietta round to sit with her in the curate’s house, have tea and perhaps give her a hand… And then gave her a pair of his underpants to darn! It certainly put Henrietta off him – and probably darning for life!

I was going through an old portfolio of bits of work and copies of works I like when I came across this drawing by Henrietta. It was done when she lived in London – so probably the 60s (and she would have been in her 60s). I love this drawing – particularly as I knew the artist, but also because it is full of life and you can hear the hubub and the clinking of the glasses, and smell the beer!

Faster and looser….

I went to a very interesting talk on the brothers Paul and John Nash last evening in the local church. Part of an Arts Festival – they also have a small exhibition. John Nash lived in a nearby village.

I sat at the back with my sketch pad and my brand new art brush pen and gave it a go!
Interesting pen – will take some getting used to. Totally unable to write with it – needs a very light touch to make fine lines.

Fast and loose…

The Barn at Chappel – painted from a printed photo as part of my homework on a course I have just finished – ‘Loosening your Watercolours’.

3 colours, fast and loose…

Quick watercolour…

Well, ‘quick’ in not a lot of actual painting time but done a bit at a time over several hours…how I normally work!

Walberswick…

England has some cracking place-names… Nether Wallop, Blubberhouses, Great Snoring, Booby Dingle, Broadwoodwidger, Ulceby Skitter… and Walberswick! I’m sure that some of them have made it over to the USA – and that you have your fair share of odd place names.

And here is a painting of Walberswick…

And here it is after some consideration and adding some darks…

(Same painting – different scan with a slightly different colour bias!)