Beetroot

 There are a number of small independent shops near my brothers that sell all sorts of fruit and vegetables, some that you dont find in the supermarkets, or, if you do they are cleaned, stripped of their leaves and wrapped in plastic.  

Cyclamen

 My neighbour was having some technical issues with her new lap top and printer, by sheer fluke I managed, eventually, to sort the problem.   As a thank you she gave me a little cyclamen plant that just keeps throwing out new flowers.

third rosehip painting

 The rosehips have lasted well but are beginning to shrivel up now so this will be the last painting of them.

Second painting of the cow parsley and twigs

I rather enjoyed painting the cow parsley so decided to do a second piece.  I used an old fashioned  dipping pen with water colour put on with a paint brush to do the fine lines.  

 

These are lovely at this time of year!

 

I love teasels but I won't try painting them again!

 

The last of the branches and seed heads from Two Tree Island

 

garlic chive seed heads

 

Saw these in the supermarket, I really miss the street markets of Venezuela and China!

 

I have enjoyed painting the rosehips so have done a second piece!

 

Since the weather has changed I have gone back to painting water colours rather than going outside to sketch.

 

cloud studies

 The weather has become changeable with lots of rain clouds blowing in.  This sketch book is just smooth regular bond paper so doesn't take a lot of water too well but it is interesting trying to capture the fast moving clouds.  

sketches of things around the flat!

I spent the morning in my brothers garden and last week sketched in Cliff Gardens with Paul.

latest sketches

Chalkwell Park with Chalk_Collective.

Michelle with her yoga group in the park.

This morning along the front, Cliff Gardens.

a REAL meet up with Chalk_Collective!

It was so nice to meet up in reality rather than virtually.  The evening was pleasant after a hot day in a busy Chalkwell Park .  The added bonus being that Michelle was giving a yoga class, so we were able to do some very quick sketches as people went through their sun salutations.  I do hope that the weather will continue to be dry so that we can meet up again outside.  The first sketch is from our virtual meeting last week.

 

Evenings with Chalk_Collective

Our weekly meet ups via skype have been great and an incentive to sketch.   I tried to capture the incoming tide last night but any sketches of the sea I do seem to be a failure.  Really frustrating!  Last week I also watched "Life drawing live" on BBC4.  Once I had worked out how to work the red button and freeze on to the model some of the poses were gone and although I cracked working the red button the model was just a bit too far away for me to see well.  All the poses were based on famous art works, I enjoyed the programme, just wished that the camera had been a little nearer the model.

 this was two separate poses captured on the one page of my sketch book, the poses were often very quick which between finding the red button to focus on the model and get myself ready meant it was all a bit rushed.