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Wednesday 9 September 2015

SKETCHBOOK NO 30 UPDATE

 
It's been a while since I shared the drawings from my mi-teintes sketchbook no 30 so here they are. 
Every year on my sister Rosi's birthday I draw something to remember her by and this was inspired by a walk in the woods and the navelwort flowers standing up like candles in the shady places.

 
I have planted several different types of lavender around our new garden sheds and these were the first flowers to appear while we were still on holiday.  I picked a few bunches and hung them on the mannikin on my desk to dry.
 
 
As you can see I've managed to find a variety of colours and each one has a different fragrance, in fact the butterfly one on the left has a rather pungent medicinal smell so I probably will leave those flowers on the plants for the bees!
 
 
We met a charming Scottish couple while we were on holiday and invited them to visit us on their return journey through Brittany.  They gave me a beautiful flower arrangement in a square white container which I have kept and re-used several time for flowers from my garden.

 
Here's a drawing of one of the collections from my garden, all the hot colours: crocosmia, Photinia leaves, St John's wort flowers and a bit of honeysuckle for the fragrance.

 
My Russian friend Luba is a very keen gardener and is very proud of her vegetables which she shares with her friends. This was a delicious marrow which I stuffed following her instructions.

 
As the summer wears on the flowers in the garden start to fade and turn into seed heads so I amused myself one day drawing all those I could find.

 
The nigella are my favourite with their feathery leaves and delicate colours and of course the seeds go everywhere so I get plants growing in lots of places.  Justine gave me the original seeds from her own plants 12 years ago and they continue to give me a lot of pleasure.  One curious thing though, the flowers are gradually turning pink from the original blue, I wonder if the pink granite of our area is having an effect as it is on my blue hydrangeas, also turning mauve and then pink!

 
A walk through the woods to the port for our Saturday morning coffee and here's a find, a piece of silver birch bark that I couldn't resist picking up to bring home.  I had to leave it outside to dry and to let the insects escape before I brought it in to draw!

 
Wednesday morning at the port and the market is very busy with the holidaymakers, but the stallholders always have time for a chat and when I said I wanted this to draw the vegetable man gave it to me for free!
Well that's it for a few weeks, the art materials are already in the camper car, long before the clothes, and we're off to England in the morning.  I'll see you in a month or so with another lot of new drawings to share with you. xx

Sunday 6 September 2015

SKETCHBOOK 29 FINISHED

 
 
I've come to the end of sketchbook no 29 which has been in my bag since February.  It's travelled with me to Tenerife, to England and been handy for all those little impromptu sketches when I'm out and about at home.  These 2 scribbles were done at the 'Fete Maritime' at Ploumanach at the end of July using my multicoloured crayon.

 
A couple of days later I took my friend Luba and her granddaughters to see an art exhibition I had found at Ploumanach.  The girls brought the sketchbooks I had given them and when they got bored while Luba and I chatted to the artist they amused themselves in the gerden drawing the view.  This sketch is a bit of a demo for them trying to explain shadows and simplification.

 
The following week Jo and Jimmy came to stay and we had a lot of fun together, especially watching Bob and his grandson putting up the old tent in the garden.  Jo and and I eavesdropped on their conversation as you can see in this sketch!

 
On Sunday morning we went to the beach and had a lovely time in the warm sunshine, digging in the sand and then catching crabs and shrimps in the nets as the tide came in.

 
All too soon it was time for them to go home and I managed a quick scribble in the back of the car on the way to the airport.

 
The last sketch in the book is the drawing I made while we took our coffee in the garden of  'les Costans' a lovely hotel restaurant where we ate our anniversary lunch last Sunday to celebrate 43 years of marriage. 
 So now it's time to start another sketchbook and I've prepared a tiny moleskine with some pretty purple handmade paper stuck to the cover. I will be taking it with me when we leave on Thursday this week for a trip to England to see the family. Sketchbook no 30 isn't finished yet so I'm hoping to have time to do some drawing in that one too and I think there still a few pages to share from it too.