It has been a while since I had my paints out and this is the first attempt using black watercolour paper. Alison Board was doing a demo for SAA so I followed along with that (more or less). This is a mixed media piece, and I really like the shimmery Rembrandt watercolour for the wings. You can’t really tell from this photo but the mount is quite green so it brings out the greens of the background even more.
Category Archives: art
Anchor and butterfly sketch.
Duddingston Kirk are holding an event in early January 2020 called – a time of hope and new beginnings – contemplating , poetry, prose, paintings, photographs as well as performances of music, song and story telling. I decided to google symbols of hope and came up with the idea of an anchor, which used to be an early Christian symbol, and a butterfly, a symbol of hope. Using Prisma pencils I made a sketch, and I also used a few stamps. I didn’t like the background as it was a bit scratchy looking despite me trying to smooth it using Sansador. Anyhow I took a photo of it, cropped it, then mucked around with the image in photoshop to give it a bit of a border/vignette. This is my first version, it looks like a tattoo and I am just not sure….I may change it before I send it in to exhibit.
Acrylic painting
I painted this one a while ago but have only just got around to getting it framed. Being quite textured acrylic it was just attracting dust so here it is framed. I was using a tutorial I found on youtube by Peter Dranitsin and I really enjoyed painting it. Oh I must do more painting soon – where does my time disappear to?

Pen and wash practice
I have been having a go at a tutorial in Paint magazine by Sue Williams of a pen and wash scene. The camera hasn’t picked up the colour all that well, but having said that I could have added a bit more colour in the grassy areas. I am not sure whether I should keep going with it and add more colour to the foreground or just leave it be? I think I will leave it for now and I can always go back to it if I want to later.
Teasel watercolour
My goodness how did it get to 2018 so quickly! My mojo went for a wander so I just had a wee break from anything arty/crafty for a while but I am back now to have another go. So I am starting the year off by doing small sketches or other in my sketch books or art journals rather than trying to paint ‘proper’ pictures so that I don’t mind too much if I muck up. I did this the other day having watched Alison C Board’s video on you tube painting teasel on wood. My version is not on wood and doesn’t use the same colours but it gave me inspiration to have a go. Watercolour and Brusho but with a bit of Stabilo pen to darken a few lines.
Barn in winter watercolour
This watercolour is another tutorial from Terry Harrison. I didn’t do very well with the wet-in-wet especially on the barn but I enjoyed painting it. In fact I made quite a few mistakes but hey ho.
Rusty Dodge
Here is my latest painting from Terry Harrison’s tutorials. This one is of a 1952 Dodge that he spotted on his travels. In real life (his photo) it doesn’t look as rusty as this but he shoes how to get a rusty looking effect.
The open gate watercolour
This is another Terry Harrison tutorial but I managed to make a rather strange shaped house on this one. I had sketched it out first and somehow thought the line I had sketched in for the tree was the line for the back of the house. I was going to try and lift the colour out but ended up just leaving it as it is.
Riverside cottage watercolour
This is from one of Terry Harrison’s tutorials. There are a few wonky bits on it but hey ho.
Polperro – (more or less) watercolour
A watercolour painting from a Terry Harrison tutorial. I didn’t quite get the colour right in the sky at the left hand side so I tried to make it into a bank of trees across from the harbour.