Up in the snowy mountains

Aschi Alto - Abruzzo, Italy

We went visiting my in-laws back in February this year. They live in central Italy, up on the mountains and it snows a lot during winter. This sketch was done on location, during one of our afternoon car trips. We pulled the car over the side of the road (we only saw one car driving on the same road that afternoon!). It was cold outside, so I stayed in the car. Shame about the electricity lines, which I love in general; they came out too big, but I didn't really have a flat surface to keep my sketchbook steady.

30 drawings in 30 days - Last set

#21/30 - Parco archeologico Scolacium, Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

#22/30 - Pen & Wash exercise, from Cathy Johnson Art Tips  

#23/30 - Golfo di Squillace, Italy

#24/30 - Anthurium

#25/30 - Hosta

#26/30 - Torre Cavallara, Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#27/30 - Sedia di vimini, Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#28/30 - Athelstan Recreation Ground, Kingston upon Thames, UK

#29/30 - Summer Trees

#30/30 - Il porto, Catanzaro Lido, Italy

The last 10 drawings have been a completely different story. Say that the motivation begun to fade away, say that we came back home, say that I went back to work, say that the last 10% of a project takes 90% of the time to complete...I finished the last drawing this month! Shame, I know. I managed to do drawing #29 at the end of October, but really lost any motivation to do drawing #30 until the new year. But I finally did it and along with a new scanner I was able to put an end to this torture (this is what does to me any unfinished project!). Overall I'm glad I did it, even if it took more than 30 days. I will do something similar again, but maybe joining some group projects this time to keep things more interesting.

You can find the previous two sets of drawings here and here.

30 drawings in 30 days - Part 2

#11/30 - La Capanna - Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

#12/30 - Spiaggia - Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

#13-14-15/30 - Doodles

#16/30 - La Terrazza - Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#17/30 - Living Room - Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#18/30 - Hibiscus - Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#19/30 - Wet-on-wet excercise

#20/30 - Golfo di Squillace, afternoon mist - Catanzaro Lido, Italy

I was hoping to get a new scanner soon, after my old one broke down a long while ago. But since that hasn't happen yet, I got my drawing scanned at work. Here is my second set of drawings which were done back in August. I loved the challenge of finding the time everyday to do a little sketch. I must confess we were on holiday back then visiting my parents, and it was not much of a time issue, more like getting the inspiration going...trying to fight the apathy that comes with doing (almost!) nothing all day and a 40degC average temperature! But I stuck to it and I'm glad I did.

These were mostly on the spot sketches, with the exception of #18 which was done from a photo I took in my granddad's garden and #19 which was an example exercise from one of Cathy Johnsson mini classes. And the doodles of course are pure imagination...

30 drawings in 30 days - first 10 drawings

#1/30 - Municipio - Pescina, Italy

#2/30 - Various plants from the garden - Pescina, Italy

#3/30 - Pescina (old town), Italy

#4-5-6/30 - Various subjects - Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#7/30 - La Tonnina - Catanzaro Lido, Italy
#8/30 - Pineta - Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

#9/30 - Strada per Pescina, Italy (from photo)

#10/30 - Colline sopra Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

And the first 10 drawings are done, almost as planned! I have been using my Moleskine watercolour notebook (21 x 13cm) as I'm planning to complete all the sketchbooks I have lying around the house by the end of the year. I have used different page layouts, so far: portrait, landscape, landscape with 4 horizontal inserts and landscape with 3 vertical inserts.
The first batch contains different type of sketches, some of them were done on the spot, some others were done using photos I had taken with my phone. I managed to do one drawing a day, except for drawings number 4, 5 and 6 that were done on the same day...you can tell by the size of the drawings and the lack of details.....

Note: In the UK the hash # isn't printed on the Apple Mac computer keyboard, so just press "alt"+3.

Back to the roots

It has been a while since I shared my thoughts on here. Although my head has been busy with ideas, projects and various topics I seemed to never find the right time to write about it. It's the lazy part of me that prevailed over the past few months (two, three?? Has it been that long?). Maybe, or it's just that all those things didn't excite me enough to find the time to actually do them/write about them. So after two days of ups and downs, lots of reading and lots of talking to G, I figure out that sometimes you need to go back to what made you start in the first place. It all begun (or better said resurfaced) back in 2005, about a year after moving to London when I enrolled in an evening art class at the local education centre. My childhood memories resurfaced and I rediscovered that sensation of fulfilment that I had lost along the way. Back then it was just a way of relaxing the brain from my daily job, but it soon became a necessity, something I would miss if I wasn't doing it. And after 7 years it's still the same...when I'm not painting or drawing I'm thinking about it. So here it comes, a new challenge for the rest of the summer: 30 drawings in 30 days! There are plenty of groups around the blog world that are taking up similar challenges; I might join some of them, just in case my motivation runs low along the way. But I will be doing it just for me, to make sure I do find the time every day to escape into my personal space if only just for a few minutes. Depending on the time available, I'm aiming to post three batches of ten drawings, hopefully with some accompanying text. And all starts today!

Out and about

I've started to do things on the move...I had to! With a little one your time is not yours anymore. It took me time to realise it. I was fighting it at first, trying to do things as I used to, trying to fit her needs into mine. Well, after four and half months I finally gave in, and you know what, it got better, much better! I learned how to make the most of my time when baby O is asleep and getting organised so I can do staff easily. I started to take photos with my phone, so I can send them to friends and family or post them online straight away...there is no more time for downloading pics on my laptop, do the editing, creating folders, etc; this is now a monthly task! I put together a very small sketching set, easy to carry around and ready for whenever...if I want to post a sketch I just take a pic of it...no more time for scanning! And now the blogging task. I was hoping to increase the number of posts on the blog, but that didn't happened either... so now I'm posting on the go using an app on my phone. Fine, the results are not the same, I admit, the app has a lot of limitations (a lot!!), but while waiting for google to make it better, I'd rather post as it allows rather than not posting at all.

Pencil shades....& relaxation technique

Came back from the exam this afternoon quite tired and still feeling a bit as I had been pushed under a lorry! I think it went well, but will have to wait until the end of November to know the results :)

G asked me to help him out with some pencil effects for some work is doing at the moment, so I drew some squares on scrap pieces of watercolour paper and started to pencil them in. I had so forgotten how relaxing it is when your mind get lost in doing something so repetitive and, if you think about it, a bit boring! I sat on the couch for at least half an hour just thinking about nothing else but filling the blank squares...soooo relaxing!

Will have to remember to do some more in the future if I need to take my mind off things; I could actually make some art work using this technique, maybe using coloured pencils......will put it down in my 'to do list ideas'!

Summer sketches - Part 2

Here is another batch of sketches done in Pescina (L'Aquila). It has been very hot during the past week, and was almost impossible to stay outside during the day because of the heat....got sunburnt one morning at 10am while sketching under the sun! Best time was in the evening around 8pm when the sun was setting behing the mountains, the colours were magnificent...not very well captured in the sketches above :(

Summer sketches - Part 1

We are finally off to Italy for a well deserved summer break! First stop is Pescina, up on the mountains of Abruzzo, in central Italy, to visit my partner's family.

The town is in the middle of what used to be a lake, il Fucino, drained in 1875. Nowadays it's a patchwork of cultivated land surrounded by the Sirente-Velino and Vallelonga mountains.

Pyracantha coccinea - Sted by step

The Pyracantha coccinea is ashrub which produces masses of white flowers in May that turn into red berries in late autumn. There is plenty of those where I live; I picked a small branch on my way home from work about a month ago. First thing I did was to draw the branch on tracing paper; I then marked the outline with a Staedler fineliner.

I transferred the picture on Fabriano Accademia watercolour paper and masked the whole of the drawing.

I used a bright orange for the background to match the orange theme in my living room. Did two washes as the first one was too pale after drying.

I then removed the masking fluid and re-applied it only on the flowers and stems in front of the leaves.

I painted the leaves with three different shades of green, then removed the masking and painted the stems. The outline of the drawing was however not very precise as the tool used for applying the masking fluid had a large tip. So I decided to outline the edges with a black pen, and this is the final result.