Sitting on a Volcano

It's not often I get to sit on a volcano and sketch so I'll make the most of my title!

This sketch is from the island of Vulcano looking over to the island of Lipari, both are part of the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily. The Aeolian islands are of vulcanic origins and there are still two active volcanos...Vulcano and Stromboli.

We stayed on Lipari just behind this church, you can see from the birds-eye view the bar where I sat and sketched over my morning coffee.

The streets are narrow, sometimes just alleyways and steps, this was the view from the bed and breakfast.


















It's well worth the extra trip to see the islands if you're ever in Sicily.....I only visited two but there are five in all.

Wall Sketching

I'm out and about this week so just a quick look in my sketchbook....the first is a small, local village seen from the harbour wall.  Quite a few posh boats here.

Here's a sketch of over the garden wall so to speak.  Overgrown, long grass and olive trees behind, I love the different layers.

Carefree

I was attracted to a photo of one of my Italian nieces on facebook, she looked so carefree and young...so I decided to draw her, using sepia and black coloured pencils.
 

A Slice of Melon

It's been difficult to keep up these past few weeks, it might look like I've been on holiday or doing my gardening but I've been beavering away and finishing some larger paintings.  These I will be posting over this month and hopefully I can work on some new ideas and do some sketching.

This watercolour sketch of a  slice of juicy melon I painted after lunch and then as usual I ate it!

My fruit down under!

This is how one of my fruity watercolours was used on a winter harvest festival flyer in Sydney, Australia.

Dee contacted me on behalf  of a small community centre/produce market asking if she could use my image and I  was happy to help.    I like how she used colours from the painting for the written text, the flyer  turned out well I think?

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Tree of life?

A little bit of fun with ink and coloured pencil.  There are plenty of these old olive trees around here ...the older the better, I just love the twisty and knarled shapes.

Olive branches have traditonally been a symbol of peace for thousands of years and olive trees can live for hundreds of years leading to them being seen as a symbol of immortality.   Now what do you think I'm going to do with this one?  Wait and see!

The Colour of Onions

Even onions are beautiful, if you look closely you can see so many colours.  When I buy onions I always ask for a mixed bag just so I can admire them....well they do have different tastes too, the red ones are best in salads etc.

I got a bit confused with my shadows on these, there was a power cut while I was painting and my light sources changed, so I tried to fix it with a bit of coloured pencil!