Sketching the garden flowers in bloom

I can't believe it has been over five weeks since I last wrote a blog post. My last post was Christmas Eve - and I can't believe that Christmas has been and gone either. January has been a really slow month though. Not much in terms of creativity but lots of reading - mainly about business related topics.

I have done a little painting though. A selection of mini landscapes (which I will post about later) and some quick sketches of the flowers that are bursting forth in the garden. The flowers were an exercise in speed painting and took about ten minutes each.

Finally, I painted one of the rabbits form the field opposite my house. We had snow for a few days and I watched this guy playing in the field after one heavy fall. I couldn't make up my mind if he was enjoying it or annoyed at having to dig for his supper.

A new friend

I have a new visitor to my garden. This little guy has decided to come to get at the peanuts in the bird feeder. Well, after all, who needs to climb trees to get nuts when you can just go to the supermarket. But this feeder is right outside my living room window so I get to photograph and sketch him to my heart's content and he is none the wiser. I suspect there is more than one who visits though so maybe this spring I will have a bevy of squirrely friends come to visit.

Challenge Gillian - December

So, this is my final entry for my year long challenge. There were times when I thought I would never manage to get to the end of the year but I did and I think it managed to get me back into the process of regular painting. That is a relief as I had really fallen away from sitting down in front of the blank page and getting on with things. Over the year I have tried new paper and brushes, new methods and techniques, new mediums and styles and had a real blast along side some trying times. Who would have thought that one year could bring so many new things in the sphere of my art.

So December's paintings consist of a very handsome rottweiler called Hugo whom I met on Facebook.


Some sketches of one of the robins who visits the garden regularly and dances around my feet when I have food to hand out. One thing I learnt from this was that I shouldn't use printer paper to sketch on if I am going to use watercolour to colour it. You can see the wrinkles formed by the water on the image.


A pencil drawing of an oyster catcher. They are a wading bird but they have discovered that farmland has as much to offer as the shoreline and are frequently seen in the field across the road from the house in the summer.

And finally, some winter sheep inspired by my trips into town during the very snowy weather.


I hope you have enjoyed seeing my progress over the year. I have enjoyed sharing my art and the supportive comments I have received. Thank you all very much. I hope you will stay tuned though as this year I will be posting plenty more art and crafts and am toying with the idea of some giveaways and demos.

Snail's pace

I am convinced that we will have an early autumn here. Fields round about are golden already so harvest will start soon. The autumn fruits are already well formed and will ripen soon. Some of them, like the rowan berries and some blackberries, are already ripe. Rowans are two to four weeks early in ripening this year when compared to the last three years. The swallow and house martins have started to congregate on the telegraph wires and from my window I have noticed a few yellowing leaves on the horse chestnut and beech trees. To top it off I received an e-mail from a bird tracking web site today that announced 'Autumn is here!'. Yippee!

With all the rain we have been having the snails in my garden have been having a rare time to themselves. There is hardly a plant left that has not been munched. My poor sunflowers look more like cloud-flowers, ragged and full of holes. So much for wanting to paint some stunning sunflowers like van Gogh. Still, at least I can sketch the snails. They really are the ideal life model. They move so slowly that I can draw them before they have time to change position.

Bunny fluff

The field in front of my house is full of eager young bunnies, kicking their heels up and dashing about like things demented. I wish I had half their enthusiasm today. The older bunnies have been feeling the joys of spring too. I can practically hear the Barry White music coming from the field. Love is certainly in the air. As I was out walking this evening I came across a cute, little bunny sitting by the side of the road. I passed withing two feet of it and it sat there watching me. The little guy in the picture, although not the one I saw, is very like him/her. Cute or what?

Boxing clever

I experienced a magical thing the other night. For the first time I saw hares boxing. This is a practice that involves female hares 'boxing' the males around the head when they become too amorous. It is documented on every wildlife programme, magazine article and book about them but I had never seen it in action. This is mainly because the hare population lives on the hills surrounding my house. I do not climb up there very often so opportunities for watching hare behaviour were always limited. These hares have now moved to lower ground, perhaps indicating a growth in local hare populations, so I was able to see them in action. It does not matter when or how I see new things in terms of wildlife, I always get a chill up my spine. It feels like a privilege to see these things. The first time I watched a badger cleaning out it's sett I was on a high for days.

This picture is a little pen and ink sketch of a brown hare that I was inspired to draw after my experience.

Doggy doodles and pandas to boot

Here are a few pieces I have been playing with over the last week or two. The dogs are, of course, Stanley. I was trying to figure out the tonal values of his fur. Unfortunately the paper was too grainy to allow nice blending. I cannot say that I am overly happy with my sketching technique. I look at some artists' sketching and they can convey so much with just a few lines. I tend to hold on tight to my pencil and scrunch as much detail into what I am sketching. Oh, for a wild and free technique that allows a good standard of detail. Am I asking for too much? Probably. Anyway, I am hoping to work on a painting of Stanley soon.

The two pandas were also just excercises. I love pandas, they have such cute faces (but big teeth). The one with the bamboo was meant to show a technique that suggests the shape of the panda rather than dictating it. It shows white fur on a white background but the shape is filled in by the viewer's brain. It probably has a technical name but I have forgotten it right now. However, I think my detail radar has sneaked in there and added a few brush strokes around the head. The second one is cute but verging on the cartoon style. He was causing me trouble and I ended up over working him.