Artworks, 2024

Time to catch up on what artwork I've done this year!

We start with this one from an old postcard of a steep street corner in Bristol. I use a lot of old Edwardian postcards as inspiration for drawing - they are all black and white (or sepia toned) which allows me to decide my own colour palette and in this case a daytime view painted as though it were a night time scene. Done in oil pastels on A2 sized paper this took from 26 March to 3 April 2024.

Monday 20 May 2024. We were in Devon for the week on a coach holiday using Torquay as a touring base. This is Powderham Castle, the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire. In fact we did briefly meet the current duke as we gathered in the castle grounds by the main entrance to meet the castle's tour guide. A very hot day, I found a spot to sit as we left the castle that gave us this view of the gatehouse. Pencil in the A4 sketchbook.

11 June 2024. Done a few weeks later but a view from the same holiday. This was a free day in Torquay and the day had promised rain and grey skies. We managed to dodge the rain which arrived a lot later than expected, but it was cold enough to make us reluctant to sit long enough to do a sketch of the promenade, which in any case was covered in scaffolding and fencing as a huge project was underway to transform the seafront. I did this one at leisure sitting at my desk with a photo from the Internet open on my computer screen to use as a reference.

We managed to do a cruise in August 2024, though due to a developing leg ulcer which was very painful we stayed pretty much on the ship with just a couple of outings during the week. I spent some time on the sun deck sketching over the side of the ship, and this was the first such one, a pencil sketch of Rijeka in Croatia in the A4 sketchbook.

The day after, 22 August 2024, we were in Zadar in Croatia and I switched to the pastel pencils which I had taken in a roll up case. I started to get a small following of fellow passengers and crew members who came to take a look at intervals as the sketches progressed.

23 August 2024, Kotor in Montenegro is a lovely place to stroll around and we did get off the ship today. It was very hot though and absolutely crowded so we just ended up with a rather frustrating walk through streets so crowded I was worried about my leg being knocked and we had a drink in a street cafe and then returned to the ship to do this from our usual seat on the sun deck.

27 August 2024. We anchored offshore at Mykonos and again pain from the leg kept us onboard in one of our favourite places. That night we were in one of the ship's lifts and a lady said "Are you the gentleman that does those beautiful paintings over the side of the ship?" It took me a little by surprise and I paused and looked round before answering in case there was another artists about to take credit...

6 December 2024. Bossington, Somerset, from an Edwardian era postcard. Pencil crayons in the A4 sketchbook. I had been looking for something to take my mind off the pain of the leg which by now had developed into a full ulcer looking like a gooey crater in the middle of my calf muscle. The leg was wrapped with compression bandages and fluid in the leg was adding to the daily wonder of shape and solidity of my upper leg. Not to mention my ability to resist some quite excrutiating pain... Normally I can ignore pain altogether, but when it's your own it's a bit harder.... Going through my collection of postcards, I came up with ten or so old postcards that I thought I might be able to do justice to. A project that is still ongoing...!

13 December 2024. This one depicts a narrow village street in Cheddar with a stream running down one side, bridged for each of the houses on that side, which are set higher up on the hillside.

21 December 2024. Bispham Village, Blackpool. Not often that I do one of a subject so close to home. I'm not sure why exactly. It's either a case of familiarity feeding reluctance or, in the case of Blackpool itself, the fact that it is so well known that people would spot any obvious errors. I did force myself to include a few figures in this one.

29 December 2024. The River Derwent at Matlock Bath in Derbyshire. Once again, pencil crayons in the A4 sketchbook.

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Sketches from Outside the UK, Part 5

Here we are, ten months of Covid-19 lockdowns, hardly leaving the house and moving from one hobby to another trying to stay sane! So it's time to revisit the sketch book and bring you up to date on a few drawings done in happier days!

In 2018 we were on the first cruise of the Marella Explorer after it joined the Marella fleet. A far bigger ship than we were used to and whilst we both enjoyed it, I prefer the smaller ships for the way in which you can strike up relationships with fellow passengers. On the larger ships you just don't bump into them as often. We joined an excursion that included Sorrento and Amalfi and it was in this second of these lovely places that I started to sketch the hillside in the A4 sketchbook, but then having to stop because of rain. Luckily for some reason I had started to draw from right to left against my usual habit so I was left with an A5 view which would probably have got smudged if I had carried on drawing to the left anyway.

Later in 2018 we were back on one of our favourite ships, Marella Celebration on a cruise called Venetian Vistas. Its first port of call was a place called Bar in Montenegro, where we strolled along the seafront, stopped in a bar in Bar for a drink and then sat on the low wall along the beach walk to do this. A very relaxing day. I could do with a few days like this right now come to think of it...

Korcula in Croatia. I have never yet been to a place I disliked in Croatia. In fact I'd go further and say there hasn't been anywhere in Croatia that I've been where I wouldn't jump at the chance to revisit. And indeed this was our second visit to this Croatian island. We had walked around the city, criss-crossed the hill from different directions, sat for a much-needed drink for a while and then braved the burning sun to do this sketch of the landing stage and martello tower (and to do the lamp post the disservice of making it lean over - it didn't really).

The following May we found ourselves in Monte Carlo for the day, within a few short days of the annual Grand Prix race. We were able to walk along the pit lane and enjoy the most expensive drink of Sprite I've ever had... I drew this from the side of the ship once I'd recovered from the walk and checked my bank balance had the funds to cover the Sprite!

Two days later we were in Livorno, Italy and went for a boat trip around the canals in the pouring rain. We had no coats and, being the last in the queue, we were sitting outside the limits of the awning that didn't quite cover the entire boat. Photography and sketching were just about impossible in the circumstances and I did this one later to accompany the blog entry of the day. The canals were lined with moored boats - something I find very hard to draw. So I left them out...

The next day we were in France at a lovely place called Sanary-Sur-Mer and I was feeling a little ashamed at not attempting any boats at all. This place was likewise full of the blooming things, so I picked just one and made myself include it in a drawing. I returned to our cruise ship later that day feeling full of self-righteousness and goodwill. Though it's a bloody awful sketch really...

Towards the end of the cruise, Barcelona gave me a better chance of redeeming myself. I surprised myself with this one to be honest and had I gone on to practice drawing a boat a day for a few weeks after this then I should have got over my reluctance to draw them. But I didn't and so I am... Still...

In September 2019 we were on our other favourite Marella ship the Marella Dream. Both the Dream and the Celebration have been sold and scrapped during the horrible year that was 2020 and we will miss them and like so many other fellow travellers are hoping with all our hearts that we can meet up with our friends, the entertainers Tomas and Maris who sang on these two ships for almost ten wonderful years. One of the joys of smaller ships is that they can visit lesser known and smaller ports and if you don't want the restrictions of an organised day out to famous places, you can just mooch about a town and feel more a part of life in whatever country you are in. This is Propriano on the island of Corsica. It gave us a perfect morning's walk along the seafront where we sat on a low but very hot wall while I drew this. Well I sat on it - Miss Franny upped sticks and left me to shuffle about on a nearby bench which had a smidgeon of shade, but which pointed the wrong way for me to draw. The buildings top right are a cemetery and the scrub bottom right were my imagination as it was a car park in real life. Afterwards we walked back along the roads into the town itself, stopping at a pavement cafe and just enjoying the bustle and swapping the occasional greeting with other cruisers who walked past.

Palamos in Spain has a beautiful beach but a coastline like Blackpool's - fairly straight and therefore not much in the way of rocks, headlands or mountains to make it all that scenic. It has some curved rows of arches every now and then to create a framework for viewing any antics on the beach and a cannon or two for bringing them to an abrupt end if they should get out of hand. By looking at an acute angle through them I managed to get a bit of land in. The shopping streets of the town near the harbour are pleasant to walk through and are waiting for a return visit so I can have a go at capturing those in the sketchbook.

I had long wanted to visit Portofino in Italy and on the September 2019 cruise we finally got to go there. The crowds made sketching almost impossible, I took photographs during the few seconds I managed to get to the front of the press of people and I did this drawing from one of them during 2020's lockdown. It's actually one of the views taken from the ferry from nearby Santa Margherita as we approached Portofino. I dare say I'll attempt more from these photos in due time - a watercolour from the famous Portofino viewpoint is included already in this blog article.

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Colour Artworks Nov 2019 - Mar 2020

Winter in Burke Towers usually involves a degree of self-isolation even without any incentive from virus bugs. And whilst I've recently spent a lot of time trying to sort out my music collection, I have on occasion got out paints or crayons of one sort or another to have a dabble at some artwork.

I spent several days coming back to this one, which I finished on 15 November 2019. Clematis Cottage in Selworthy a few miles from Minehead, Somerset. It is a watercolour. Whenever I have paintings framed I use the same framer and he commented that he preferred my watercolours to the oil pastels as they had better detail. From my own point of view, it is much easier to mix colours in watercolour too. But because they are transparent, any mistakes usually have to be lived with as they are next to impossible to cover up!

30 November 2019, I was sitting half hypnotised by photos just flashing on and off on my screensaver one day and a photograph of Bourton-on-the-Water woke me up with the realisation that it might make a good subject for a sketch. I did this over the course of the day - around five to six hours in all. Coloured pencils in the A4 sketch book and it was done without any prior pencil sketching. A first...

This was done on Christmas Eve, again in five to six hours. This time the inspiration was a photo found on the Internet of Lake Halstatt, Austria. I used pastel pencils for this one and once more just got on with it without any pencil work beforehand.

I've had it in mind to attempt this view ever since I took a photo from this viewpoint in Portofino, Italy in September last year. Recently I found a 9x7 inch pad of watercolour paper that had remained untouched since the house move a year ago and did this at my desk, using a desktop easel that marked its own first use. A slightly different technique than my usual dabbing style and whilst it found favour with viewers on FaceBook, I might still try another version either in another medium or with my usual watercolour technique and on larger paper at some point in the future.

That brings us up to just a couple of days ago so until I splash or spread a bit more colour or pencil over a bit of paper, I hope you enjoyed looking at these and bye for now.

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