Scary Monsters

The word for Illustration Friday this week is 'scary'.
I decided to paint one of the statues/gargoyle type creatures from a nearby 17th century villa known as the 'Villa of Monsters' for it's strange and creepy statues.
There are at least sixty of them left from a collection of about two hundred, sitting on the walls around the villa!  You can read more about them  here.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Sketchbook Pages

I've been having a few sketching afternoons while I wait for my son to finish his football training.  This is a rocky outcrop in the middle of the town with what looks like a watchtower on top.  It's a pretty good place for a watchtower as there are clear views all round, although I don't know anyone who has been up there.

There are views like this one, looking out over to one side of the town, I live in a valley behind the tree.

I'm sure this man sitting on a bench outside the town hall knew I was drawing him, he kept glancing my way then posing like a professional model!

I did this sketch at home, I picked a branch from a wild olive tree just outside the gate.  This is not far off the actual size of the 'fruit' which is like a large berry.

...and finally some Jasmine from my garden (not quite a yellow as my scanner thinks it is).

Fuel

'Fuel' for Illustration Friday.
A pile of logs stored ready for the fire in winter, I'd love to have my own open fire or wood burning stove!

Secret Spots (Arthouse Sketchbook Project 2012)

Here are a couple more pages for the Sketchbook Project 2012.   My theme is Encyclopedia of secret places  and so far I have drawn mostly gardens and buildings, castles etc, but you can't get away from the sea if you live on an island.  These are some colourful traditional fishing boats which are still used in smaller fishing villages.  If you go down to the seafront about lunchtime you'll always find someone mending nets, or preparing their boat.

My second secret spot is another little village by the sea and is one of my favourite places to go late on a Saturday afternoon in the summer.  It's a popular place for wedding couples to have their photos taken and sometimes there are 2- 3 couples (and photographers and videos) on the beach as the sun starts to dip behind the sea.
We sit with ice-creams and watch the show...Italians really dress up for weddings and a late afternoon wedding calls for cocktail or evening dresses at the very least!

Sprinkled and Scattered

This week the word  for Illustration Friday is scattered, though I'm not sure if this little drawing is more of a sprinkled!?


Watercolour and coloured pencil

No Strawberry Grapes

A few leaves  that come from my small vine of strawberry grapes.  These are small black, sweet grapes that smell of strawberries and are wonderful to eat.  Unfortunately they didn't bear any fruit this year but  the leaves  turned a burnt orange colour and crisped up into lacy shapes.
Hopefully next year will be a  better harvest but I decided to immortalise the leaves anyway, too pretty to resist!

The Peacock Garden

I visited the Peacock Garden while in the UK, 

so called for it's topiary peacocks and of course real ones.

It helped that it was a warm and sunny day and the lovely flowers,

plants and butterflies were at their best.

I have always liked drawing topiary and have started a painting

based on this garden.

The above is a practice sketch to get the feel of the colours and

shapes.

These are some small peacock feathers drawn in coloured pencil that I picked up along the way,

actually my pockets were stuffed full of them! 

Back from London

watercolour sketch

I'm still recovering from my quick visit to London to see the UKCPS exhibition which I thoroughly enjoyed.

It's amazing to see work by artists that normally I only ever get to see on internet, and the first thing everyone says when the see work of this standard in coloured pencil is ' I never knew you could do this with pencils '.

  

 

The exhibition took place in The Central Hall, Westminster, just opposite Westminster Cathedral, a very grand location.

Both  of my entries were hung in the first room after the Faber Castell stand.   In the main room there were various areas selling cards and books.  I succumbed to temptation and bought a signed copy of Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils by Ann Swan.  It's a beautiful book that would appeal to non-botanical artists too. 

There was so much to see it was impossible to take it all in, all the entries can be seen here

My favourites in the exhibition were 'Hydrangers' by Gayle Dickinson and 'Wisdom of Age' by Irina Garmashova-Cawton, but there were many others too.

Now it's time to get down to some serious painting as I have a couple of local exhibitions coming up in the next few months and I hope to have some new work ready soon!