Thursday 30 August 2012

The Last of the Summer pears



















These are the last of my pears:  I know I've done several of these watercolours but these were hard to resist.
They had a lovely golden rosy glow, sitting in the sunlight on my kitchen table.

Sunday 26 August 2012

Tall Buildings





Not exactly skyscrapers ( we don't have any of those anyway) but beautiful old tall buildings around Piazza Marina.
I find the tops of these old buildings interesting, I imagine little roof gardens and hidden terraces, but you would probably have to climb many flights of stairs first!  







Thursday 23 August 2012

Ssshhhh everyone is sleeping....



  On a hot afternoon everyone is dozing, not much else you can do!  



Not a whisker is stirring......


Good job I have my new sketchbook to hand.

I went to the local art shop for some supplies yesterday and the assistant informed me that two big boxes of Fabriano watercolour pads & sketchbooks had arrived.....would I like to go down to she stock room with her and see what has arrived.  Yes Please!
I bought a great big thick sketchbook with creamy yellow paper, far too big for my sketch bag......but lovely to think of how I will fill it.
I also bought a new watercolour pad and some tubes of paint too.
New art supplies always make me happy!






Friday 17 August 2012

Too much thinking is bad for you...





The top watercolour is tiny, the size of a playing card and it took just a few minutes to paint using left over paint from the watercolour below.







This watercolour is much larger and took quite a bit longer and I had a photograph as a reference, the smaller one was painted from memory.   I prefer the small painting don't you?

I painted the small one first thing  in the morning and the other in the late afternoon.  What does this say about my way of working?  Obviously I paint better when my brain isn't fully operative.
Some might say that is most of the time!

Paintings are of the salt pans and an old windmill at Trapani.

    

    

 

Monday 13 August 2012

Old Olive Tree

























If you can't tell it's an old olive tree!  I was having too much fun experimenting with different textures and lost the shape of the tree although I was quite pleased with the background.
This tree is up in the hills not far from where I live.  In the past weeks we've had so many fires in that area and I'm not sure if the trees survived. I will never understand people who deliberately start fires on a bone dry  hillside killing wildlife, plants and trees?






Sunday 5 August 2012

Ermelinda





Ermelinda is a singer, she has a beautiful classical voice.  We met earlier in the year at an art exhibition and  I  secretly tried to sketch her interesting face and long black hair.  Fortunately after we got talking she agreed to pose for some reference photographs (sketching time ran out) for me to use at a later date.

It's taken me a while to get round to it and is a first attempt at a portrait in watercolour.  I think I painted her a little too fierce and there are things I don't like but I didn't want to fiddle around with it too much so I left it as it is.