Watercolour splashiness

I don't often do watercolours. Apart from sketchbooks, I only do one, for Hesket Show, every year - so it was slap some paint down and see what happens...to be fair I really enjoyed the afternoon sploshing paint around and may well do more! These were based on South Uist, a misty moisty day! The bottom one was my Hesket Show entry ...and it did get a first...although it was rather close run with Tom's technically brilliant painting of a 'Reconstruction of the early paravian dinosaur Microraptor on Ginko from early Cretaceous China, in the compostion of a Audobon's Bird's of America plate', gaining second. To be fair, it came down to the judges taste...I may be forgiven at some stage! 

Tom's watercolour.

Field Sketches

For this holiday I set myself the challenge of filling a sketchbook with field sketches using watercolours. I restricted myself to two brushes and no pencil - fortunately the weaather gods were kind. It really helps when painting outside! I wanted ot get the feeling of the place rather than going for accuracy ...it's suprising how many pages  there are in a small sketchbook! Anyway I managed 40 paintings - some as double pages and did manage to fill the book - a lovely record to have of a great holiday. 

Sketching....

..and the sketches ...below...

Mini Lakeland views

One of the things I really like to do, if I have enough time, is to paint mini Lakeland views. Each canvas is 7cm x 7cm and is painted using a palette knife. I was kindly given a box and the compartments were just the right size to store my paintings in, so the challenge was obviously to fill the box! I have done and it's jsut a case now of identifying which views don't sell and replacing them with more popular ones. 

Generally I tend to do four at a time to try and use up the paint, but rarely do more then four as I lose focus! 

Great Gable; Jaws of Borrowdale; Bannerdale Crags; Skiddaw over the Moss and Buttermere - with a random Solway view

Ullock Pike; Carrock Fell and Bannerdale Crags. 

Ullswater from Sheffield Pike; Causey Pike; Ennerdale and Catbells. 

Brutal - a new textile piece

Following our 'walk' up Red Pike - here's the textile that tries too capture the atmosphere. The piece uses  a mixture of dyed fabrics, gelli printing, machine stitching, applique and paint.

Red Pike Summit 

My interpretation.

The following is a record of how I did it ...

Planning the background fabrics and some appliqued boulders...

Gelli printing with some stencils for boulders...

Beginning to stitch ...

More stitching and paint 

The final piece.

Hazel Campbell course

Last weekend I treated myself to a two day painting course in Castle Douglas. Hazel was a great tutor and it was just so nice to take some time to myself and just paint! On the Saturday we focussed on landscapes and I enjoyed working large and with inks, acrylic and pastels. I did base the first two images on places, Great Gable from Innominate tarn and then Buttermere, while the thrird is imaginary. The fourth was very loosley based on the meltwater channel at Aughertree.  On the Sunday we were given photogrpahs from Madeira of a fruit market and enjoyed playing with colour!