Everyday Sketches

AoSA – Arrival of Spring, Auchentoshan

On a dreary, wet day a little colour was needed. This Christmas Cactus decided to wait till spring to burst into bloom.

T is for tulips, which are coming up! and this is the last bit of snow!

Again I bundled up and sat outside to sketch these. It is quite calming to sit and stare at this small wonder emerging. When it started to rain (providing some nice splotches in my sketch) I had to finish indoors.

Inspired by David Hockney’s masterwork, Arrival of Spring in Woldgate East Yorkshire 2011 (twenty eleven) I decided to draw something each day of April to mark the arrival of spring here in my yard. Meanwhile, David Hockney is doing the same in Normandy (not inspired by me!). Read about it and see some of his iPad drawings here.

Late yesterday afternoon I got bundled up and went outside to try and sketch the one green thing in my yard, poking up from the manure and mulch. Not a great result, so I tried again indoors, referring to the first sketch and making up a scene. It’s a start.

Before sending these Buttercup squash to the roasting pan I felt they deserved to be drawn. To try and convey the unusual markings on the skin I used watercolour paint combined with Caron d’aché Neo-colour II water soluble wax pastels, which look and feel like the crayons from childhood. So that was fun!

I enjoy what remains of tulips as they are withering away and have dropped most of their petals.

This bouquet, about to drop its petals, was a most unusual colour, which just happened to match the “orange” decoration on this favourite jug. Pencil, watercolour and a touch of white gouache.

My walk today afforded me the opportunity to take a wee detour into a nearby sugar bush. It was so quiet that, as I stood there drawing, I could hear the “drip, drip, drip” of sap falling into the buckets around me.

Colour added later, and too much of it, in hindsight. Below is the other wee drawing from today, with some restraint on colouring. This stack of boxes has something to do with the bee hives wrapped up next to them.

Coloured pencil, for a change. A quick portrait of this buttercup squash from my cold storage that needs to get cooked, soon.

And a quick sketch of what was in the sink the other day, inspired by Shari Blaukopf’s sink sketch. It was an odd assortment of: my granny’s 70-year-old rolling pin, a bamboo handled strainer from over 40 years ago and a cutlery knife I’ve had for over 50 years.