drawing from the stream of consciousness

the things she couldn't hold, the things she couldn't say

Clean for Illustration Friday

Clean? I've always found the concepts of cleanliness and sin to be somewhat dubious.

stone eyed bloom

self-portrait in ochre and blue

Painted from a photo, in watercolour.

opposites for illustration friday

painting on the beach at fiorenzuola di focara

It's driftwood which reminded me of an animal carcass, half an ostrich maybe? Eh, I didn't want to do a normal beach scene.

There are more paintings and photos below, but to see even more pics and read about where we went and stuff, have a look at my newly created travel blog.

tractor in the countryside

San Marino di Urbino, drawn as the sun was setting...fast! And then painted afterwards.

paintings from nadia & millo's house in fermignano

Window of the room we were staying in, at my friend Nadia & Millo's house in Fermignano.































And this is their kitten, Padma.

Some paintings of Urbino, Northern Italy

Above is a painting of an alleyway in Urbino, inspired by this view (see photo below). It's a gorgeous medieval town not far from Fermignano, which is where we stayed.
















Below is a painting and photo of the view from the top of Urbino.

Italian holiday

I'm heading off to Italy in a couple of days for a much needed holiday! We'll be staying with friends near Urbino, in the North of Italy. And I guess the whole nation will be in a good mood since winning the World Cup yesterday!










































We'll be gone for a week. See you all back in blogville when I return. In the meantime, enjoy your summers!

a second portrait

Paul, in watercolour.

hidden skyline for illustration friday

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Thank you for your comments!

In case you were wondering, this is a photograph of the sun coming through some canvas curtains.

a british summer for photo friday

St Ives, Cornwall

splashes of colour

This painting was inspired by Susan's photo of koi carp that I saw over at her blog art esprit. She kindly said I could use the photo to paint from, but I'm afraid I just don't do it justice. It's only a first attempt though, I do want to keep trying. I've always been mesmerised by koi carp and the watercolours I've seen of them have always inspired me. I think I need to go back at look at some of them though cos I'm not getting the water reflections right. Still, it was fun to do! Watch this space.

Thanks Susan!

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Just wanted to thank everyone for their comments. It's made me think that maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself and rigidly stick to an idea of how I think a painting of koi carp in a pond ought to look like, and just enjoy what actually came out instead. So thanks!

Playing with portraits

So this is the beginning of my month of exploring portraits. I wanted to experiment with doing a loose, spontaneous, watercolour portrait and this was the result. My drawings have tended to be quite controlled, so it was fun to just start painting and see what would happen. I wanted to produce something vibrant and striking, yet calm. I think I kind of achieved that! What do you think?
















Pencil & watercolour 2.7.06

Eyes

People's eyes are always the first thing I notice about them, and say so much more to me than any other feature. This is from a portrait of Paul I was experimenting with, and I wanted the eyes to be the most striking feature (apart from the colour), so I thought it would fit in well with this week's Inspire Me Thursday theme, body parts.