Time Flies

The time flies past so quickly and summer is passing into autumn already. It is my favourite time of the year though with plenty of things to draw and paint. I have 2 books now to catch up on here, Ida's and Julie's. They are both filling up with beautiful studies, each page different and unique; they are all going to be treasured.

For Ida's book I did a few Tregaron bog sketches as I went there rather a lot in early summer. I also painted a dandelion clock in white gouache on black paper.

Then for Julie's book I painted cow parsley in white gouache again on black paper. I also added a few items that I'd found on walks and in gardens over July and August. 

And to fill the gap I stuck in a skeletal Magnolia leaf.

Summertime, and the living is easy

Well, it ought to be. But alas this month life hit me with something of an enormous great thud. Without going into tedious detail, it was all rather awful for a little while. But, luckily the big light at the end of the tunnel looms ever larger, (and Marks and Spencer cakes help an awful lot too). 

So, onto this month's missive and the sketchbook of choice this time around belongs to Frances. Now, I don't know Frances that well but I know she is rather partial to a Celtic knot design or too. Having seen a couple of lovely designs in her sketchbook, I decided I couldn't quite match the intricate Celtic knottery and decided to go with a pageful of flowers instead. Also, with all the rather hellish nonsense going on, I knew I wouldn't be able to spend as much time as I would have liked on this one.  

A seasonal display.

So, not wanting to disappoint, I had a good trawl through the archives and came upon a page of mixed summer flowers that I had completed a little while ago. I loved working on this page and knew with all the colours and shapes Frances might quite like these in her book. Rather than just a simple cut and paste job, I decided to work them up a bit with the addition of some dry brush work, to bring out the details a bit more. This also gave me the chance to see how the addition of Ox-gall liquid to the water would affect the paint. It worked a treat, and really helped with the flow of the paint, particularly when painting the 'Summertime' lettering. Highly recommended and great thanks to renowned artist Fiona Strickland for the tip.

The 'touching up' palette.
With the addition of some Winsor and Newton Ox-gall to the painting water.

As always, I added some of my typography flourishes, (well, I can't help myself on that) just to give it all that final personal touch. Flourishy and fluttery, I hope you like it Frances.

A gorgeous pink for the May / June entry

A size 0 brush, a steady hand and some Ox-gall work a treat.

The Ox-gall really assisted in getting the sweeping arches smoothly round.

Here's a quick edit. Recently I wrote a piece about our exchange for the Society of Floral Painters.

Emergence

February is supposed to be the month of romance, what with Valentine's Day appearing like clockwork on the 14th. So for this month, I decided to work on some studies of buds and emerging blooms, using passionate pinks, purples and reds.

The emergence of spring.
watercolour, pen and ink.

It has been lovely to see the camellias, early irises, hellebores and bergenias coming into bud and bloom in the garden, despite the recent shocking weather. Nature is wonderful how it just does it's own thing regardless. Starting with the typography, I mixed a rich pink using Perylene Maroon and Permanent Rose with a touch of Carmine and carefully painted the opening title.  Choosing some deliciously plump buds from a Camellia Anticipation from the garden, I kept the little study quite simple with just one prominent leaf. The acidy greens of the buds looked so pretty against the emerging pink of the petals and the rich green of the leaf. It all came together really nicely. To offset all the pink and not to go too overboard with it, I added a purple blue bud of iris reticulata.

In the garden...

Hellebores under an old tree

And more Hellebores, creating a satisfying clump.

Bergenia or 'Elephant's Ears'.
These just 'popped up'. 

Garrya elliptica 'James Roof' 

Last year, I discovered the joys of Garrya elliptica 'James Roof'. Having never seen this unusual plant before, I was quite taken by the long dangling tassels that are actually the flowers. The Garrya is an evergreen shrub with the most gorgeous, large glossy green leaves. initially, I used a sprig (or should that be small branch) of this new delight in a mixed study last year, and having come by another piece (pinched from over the hedge up the road) it had to be done again. This time I used some pen work too, just to give the piece more a sketchbook feel.      

Just for a personal touch, I also added a couple of little studies I completed a few years ago.

Snow on a frozen pond,
and cloudspotting

January Colours

Yes it does.... It took a long time (over a month) before I finally got my sketchbook from Jackson's. But when I got it I was over the moon. The Stillman & Birn book is really nice looking and the paper feels wonderfully smooth and is white. That's important for me. I hate creamy coloured watercolour paper. This is good and it will show all the colours I paint and draw in the way I want them to be shown.
So I started straight away with the title page. No problem, that was just a matter of grabbing my bookbinder glue and stick my Ex Libris in the front. I had a month to wait for the sketchbook and used that time to come up with a nice title page image. It's one of my favourite birds, the long tailed tit. They are such happy little birds and I get them a lot in my garden.

The only thing I had to work on is the lettering. I haven't written enough lately and it shows in the handwriting. Ah well... the bird was nice ;)

After that it was time to make the first two pages. I thought a lot about it and looked for inspiration on the Internet. I decided to just start with what I had in my garden. It's January and one would think that there's not much going on in nature. Wrong!!! If you look well around you there's a lot going on right now. I first cut off a twig of my Hazel. They started to colour in December and are now slowly opening up. I picked a twig with male and female catkins. It's so nice how you can see them so clearly on the Hazel.

I recently got a few new watercolours and found out that the Cinnabar Green Light Extra from Old Holland matched the male catkins beautifully. In my collection of Italian watercolours from Zecchi (in Florence) were two other colours that came very close to the hues I needed: Magenta Lake and Venetian Yellow. To finish that page I added two hazelnuts from last Autumn in coloured pencil.

On the second page I made a drawing of my flowering Prunus autumnalis. That tree is the best tree a person can have in their garden. It starts flowering after the first frost and continues to do so all winter and the start of spring. The leaves are very bright green and small, filtering the light in the summer so nicely. In autumn the leaves change colour to happy yellow and orange colours. What else do you want? Again the Magenta and Cinnabar green were most useful for this twig.
Finally I found a flowering Viburnum bush close to my house. The scent is heavenly and again I could use the soft pinks. And what else did it need? A little something to balance it all. Last year I found a small feather of a Goldfinch in our garden. Treasures like that you just have to pick up. Now is the time to share this little feather with others.

Now, about the paper.... did I like it? Yes! It is not Fabriano 5 of course but it's very nice for a sketchbook. I did some lettering in wet ink. The ink didn't bleed and feather and even the small puddles of ink didn't get through to the other side of the paper. I normally work quite dry in watercolour, especially with smaller subjects. So for me the sizing of the paper wasn't too much to handle. I imagine that if I would like to work more wet in wet, I absolutely would get a problem. But I don't, so never mind about that. For coloured pencils it's nice too although I prefer paper that allows a few more layers. But again, this is a sketchbook and not paper to make a masterpiece on. So you won't hear me complain about it.
A shame we can't buy the sketchbooks in the Netherlands but I'm happy the Golden Boy has sent me his spare sketchbook as a gift. It means more sketch fun for me ;)

~ Sigrid Frensen ~