Kits Coty

Sometimes I surprise myself.

We took a run down to Rochester in Kent today. The Dickens festival was in full swing and the town center was packed, so for a bit of peace and quiet afterwards (Mikki bought me a watercolour board as part of my birthday present), we swung down to take a look at Kits Coty. I've not been there for a while, but despite the proximity of the roads, it's always so quiet there.

I took along my sketchbook and pencil for a first 'on the spot' go at sketching in the field. All my other efforts have been from photos in the comfort of home. The grass was quite damp, so sitting was out of the question.

I'd parked up by the A229 and walking down, drawing a sketch, taking some photos and returning to the car took a total of just over half an hour. By my reckoning, the sketch below therefore took me less than 5 minutes. I know it's not perfect, and the scan quality doesn't help, but I think I'm improving slowly...

Stone Gate

Last week, I was bought a series of DVDs with art lessons on them. One of the disks had a lovely tutorial on sketching with pencil then creating a finished piece of art in the studio later. I watched the program, which included a lovely shot of a location in the Peak District. The finished picture included a stone gateway leading to a rocky ridge.

Last night, I tried to just draw/paint a thumbnail of the gateway from memory. Again, I think my colour sense has let me down, though I'm reasonably happy with the composition of the upright stone and right hand wall. The left could do with some rework!





I've obviously got a way to go, but the good news is that I'm booked in for a free trial watercolour lesson at the local art school. Depending how it goes, I'll probably book in for a full course of beginners lessons at the first opportunity.

Chun Quoit

I do love my Cornish quoits! I've previously mentioned my problem with colours. I've been told this one looks like an explosion in a psychadelic paint factory, after another attempt using watercolour brush pens. This is Chun Quoit. Please don't laugh. For comparison, I've also included an earlier pencil sketch that I did.:







If you'd like to know what any of the original sites that I've attempted to portray in this blog look like in real life, just Google their names and check
for images.

I'll add further pictures here as I and when I produce anything I consider worthy of public consumption.

Devil's Den

Returning to pencil sketches, here's the Devil's Den, near Avebury in Wiltshire.

Lanyon Quoit

After the success of Pawton, and just to bring me back to earth with a bump, I tackled a photo of Lanyon Quoit, also in Cornwall (a favourite place of mine!) this time using watercolour over an initial pen sketch. You can see what I mean about a lack of colour sense...

There's also a pencil outline, and a later watercolour sketch of the same picture.

Pawton Quoit

Encouraged by the tree sketch, I tackled a favourite subject of mine, ancient megaliths.

This is Pawton Quoit, in Cornwall, and was sketched one lunchtime at work, on a Post-It note!

Tree study

Ok, first up is a sketch of a tree that I did some while ago, after reading a book about how to draw trees. I tried to take what I'd learnt and apply it to a sketch of a photograph that I'd taken. The tree is a huge birch near the village of Chippenham in Buckinghamshire, and the sketch takes up just over half a page in an A5 book.

A place for my 'Art'

I've long wanted to be able to draw and paint - my grandfather was quite gifted in this area, and sold many copies of Old Masters done in oils, during his life. My father was gifted with his hands, being a useful handyman, though he was somewhat lacking in the artistic side.

For my own part, I've always felt that these skills passed me by, but recently encouraged by my wife and partner, I've been trying a few things out over the last 3-4 years. I felt it was therefore time to record some of my efforts, humble though they are. The plan is to graduate from these simple pencil and pen drawings to tackle full watercolours. I hope to start taking classes later in 2008, though my colour blindness/lack of colour sense, as evidenced by a couple of the efforts that will appear here, may prove too great a barrier. We'll see.