Tuesday 24 June 2014

Last Light





There is always something to inspire a painting when I have a wander down by the sea. Even places I visited time and time again have something different or a certain light to capture.
This little village by the sea is always busy especially in the summer months, if I hang about enough something always catches my eye, it could be a fisherman mending his nets, gulls out on the rocks or the colourful fishing boats like this one.
I experimented with oil over acrylic, trying to get some texture in the harbour wall and sand, it's a fun process and I'm already trying out some new ideas. Hope you like it!

Mixed media on mdf wood panel, 38 x 30 cms



Thursday 19 June 2014

My sketchbook and days out...




It's the beginning of the summer, and hopefully there will be more time to sketch and paint.  To start with are some tiny little pears.  Every year I can't resist sketching them, they are all different shapes and none bigger than my thumb.



A 'manderino' was hiding in  my sketchbook too (that's one from a couple of months ago).





Out walking in the woods I was struck by how many pink flowers there were, these are just a few.






I've had my mum here to stay for 10 days so some days out... it's nice to be a tourist sometimes!
This is Cefalù, we had a wander around and some lunch overlooking the sea. 





We also ate here on a trip to Erice. It was an old house with much of it's original decorations, we sat upstairs in what could have been a bedroom.  I had the fish cous cous!  This place is an off-shoot of Maria Grammatico's well known cake shop next-door, so we couldn't leave without tasting some almond pastries.




I wrote about Erice in one of my previous posts here if you want to know more.


Thursday 5 June 2014

Soft light and terracotta pots



20x27 cms coloured pencil


I have a thing about terracotta and the way the warm Sicilian sun throws delicate shadows and pools of colour.  This group of plant pots and young grape vines was no exception as the afternoon light filtered through the tender leaves.

I started this coloured pencil piece at the beginning of the year, as much as I love coloured pencil I find that I don't have the patience that I had before or perhaps it's just that I don't have the same time available for art that I used to have. This means I have had to make choices and decide where I will concentrate my time.  It won't be the last of coloured pencil just a break!