My house is a mad-house!

Today has not proved to be a good day to get some work done. My house has been taken over by painters, not the artist type, decorators. I'm very happy I'm not up the ladder doing the work, however its a little distracting having someone tapping on your studio window saying 'that's very clever, that it!', thou obviously very flattering!

My house has disappeared under a layer of dust, and my sinuses stuffed up with fumes and paint dust, joy!

Another couple of hours

Looking at this now, I need to change the bottom of the girls t-shirt, it's too high, so she's looking a little dumpy, which she's not at all!

I also need to lighten her hair which I think has more blonde highlights. The boy hasn't got ginger hair, the orange is going to be a undercoat.

I'm using the gouache to create basic hues and tones, then working in details with the watercolour pencils.

Let's get some paint on

I finished off my sketching today, so decided it was time to get painting. The background is very rough, I wanted to loose the white. Once I finish the children I will decide what I'm going to do with it.
The little girls features have softened nicely as I have applied wet paint onto the watercolour pencils.

I've survived turning middle-aged!

Well that was a weird week, nice but strange. Why is 40 so significant? One thing I know its a great opportunity

to catch up with everyone you know and throw a party!

Had another session at this today, one more to sketch out, then I think I be ready to get some paint on. They all look quite hard at the moment, but the features will soften once I start to paint. I've used a watercolour pencil which will dissolve away once I get painting.

Summer's over!

It's back to the usual routine, the boys are back at school, and I'm back in front of the easel.

Over the summer I was asked to do a new commission. Five kids who are cousins. The photos are great, they are animated and taken in good light. Its an A3 painting, I decided today that gouache and watercolour pencil will work well. I made a small start today taking my time to get a feel for the characters and expressions of the children.

Its a busy week for me so I'm not sure how much more I will get done in the rest of the week. I've an added distraction, that this Friday I turn 40!

2 weeks of rain......

I'm back from my summer hols, and rain was a large feature of the 2 weeks. This year we travelled to the Loire Valley in France, I had been looking forward to taking some pictures of the scenery, however the weather had other ideas. To add to my joy we were camping! We tried to make the best of it, hey we were pitched on a vineyard, so wine was never far away!
Last year we had better luck in the Loire, beautiful weather all week, and one thing we did this year was to revisit a fantastic zoo in the Loire, Zoo Doue.
We left France after 8 days, to go back to the UK heading down south west to Cornwall. If we thought the rain was bad in France, nothing compared to the cornish stuff, the sea-mists came in for the 4 days we were there. Scenery I believe was some where under it! We know the area well so decided to cut our losses and leave, fed up of fighting our way though grumpy tourists in the soggy attractions.
So glad to be back!

Butterflies at Kew

One of our favourite places to visit is Kew Gardens, and its just a short bus trip away. We got lucky today, Kew has got a fantastic display in its Princess of Wales glasshouse. Butterflies and moths flying free amongst tropical plants. Some of them are as big as birds, absolutely spectacular!