SUMMER AT HOME PART 2

Here is our favourite beach, Tourony, which has beautiful views to the Sept Iles and lots of rock pools to play in.

Jo and Jimmy came to stay and we had a lovely time here collecting crabs and shells and paddling in the rather cold water.

I made Jimmy a book to draw in while he was here and he loved it and the multi-coloured pen I put in the elastic slot on the spine.

I have a collection of creatures that Jimmy loves to look at when he comes to stay and this time he asked if we could draw them together.

The bat is his favourite and I think he made a lovely job of drawing it with the wings open even though mine has it's wings folded. He asked if I had a gold pen to use on the bee and then decided he wanted to keep it!

We found some lovely green crabs on the beach which were added to the sketchbook but left on the beach when we came home.

A quick sketch of another beach day with friends.

We visited friends on their boat for lunch one day and caught the bus back in the evening.

My friend Luba and her husband Herve have a fig tree in their garden which always produces far too many fruit for one family to eat so she gave me a couple of kilos, most of which I made into chutney.

As a Belarussian Luba loves to forage in the forests for fungi and she can't resist collecting far too many so I'm the lucky one who receives the spares.  These 'pied de mouton' were delicious in a pasta dish.

Well, that's a good catch up for now, it will be a few weeks before I can blog again as we're off on our travels in the camper car next week so see you at the end of September.

MY 300th BLOG!

Hello friends and followers, I've come to a landmark, my 300th blog post and I've decided to celebrate with a look back over the last 5 years of blogging.  This hydrangea was the first picture I posted on Nature sketchers after I was invited to join by Cathy Johnson who runs the Artist's Journal Workshop group on Facebook.  She had seen my drawings and thought I might be interested in contributing and to qualify for the group I had to have my own blog, hence the birth of Colours in the Breizh.

In January of 2012 I started to keep a nature journal to record the happenings in and around my home here in Brittany.  I really enjoyed the discipline of going out every day to find something to draw in my sketchbook and then later I re-visited all the pages again to post on the blog.  I've shown the book to several people here and I hope I've inspired some to start the drawing and observing habit too.

By the end of 2012 I was looking for a new project and discovered the 75 day challenge organised by Brenda Swenson, a watercolour artist and sketcher in America. The aim was to draw for 75 days using only pens, so I sorted out my rather large collection and found I had all sorts from fine liners, through brush pens and markers to biros.  At the end of the challenge I received my 'Artistic License' from Brenda and a nice handwritten card congratulating me on completing.

I found a black sketchbook at a car boot sale locally for 1euro and after covering it with a pretty fabric it became another occasional nature journal.  It's quite a challenge to find the right colours that stand out on black paper but I found it a useful learning experience.  I was using my newly discovered Museum coloured pencils which have a rich pigment that works well on a dark background.

My main love of sketching is to draw when we are on holiday and as we go to so many different places in our camping car I usually fill a sketchbook each time we go away.  I take photographs too but they don't get looked at nearly as much as the sketches which are also a useful way to identify places and dates when we're discussing them later.  In fact this sketch of Chinon chateau is different from the one I drew several years earlier before the extensive renovations were undertaken.

Another challenge I took part in was the 2015 January challenge where a different subject is posted for each day of the month.  It was fascinating to see all the other participants' interpretations of the same subject as we all posted them to a special page on Facebook.

When we go to England to see the family I love to draw my surroundings as well as trying to sketch live portraits. Joanna had moved to a new house in 2014 so I drew the lounge while we all relaxed on a Sunday afternoon.

Just occasionally I copy photos to complement the 'plein air' sketches, especially when there isn't time to draw everything I see!  These sheep at a farmer's festival were such fun to capture as well as the horses and the snail I drew afterwards.  I have a small tin of coloured pencil stubs that I take on our travels so my palette is limited which means I have to be a bit creative with my interpretation, as you can see I've used a lilac for the shadows which I think makes the picture more interesting.

I love to make my own clothes and I'm always on the lookout for interesting fabrics so when I found a stall in the market at Tenerife selling pretty sarongs I couldn't resist. In fact over 4 years I bought several different ones and each year when we returned I went to show the girls on the stall what I had made, needless to say they were delighted.  This is the latest one which I eventually made with 2 sarongs so there was a nice long piece left over to make a scarf.

In January 2012 I took a bookbinding class so I could learn how to make my own sketchbooks and it has changed my life.  Now I'm always looking out for interesting fabric to cover them with and unusual paper to draw on.  When a friend gave me a stash of old maps I made some of them into a couple of sketchbooks with hand-made drawing paper samples stuck to the plain back of the map and a square of gesso on the map side to draw on. The gesso was a bit hard on my drawing pens but I had a lot of fun trying out the different papers with different media.  Another trial and error experience!

I have a friend, Rose Jones, who is a brilliant photographer who has given me permission to use her photos as inspiration,  This one is done in pen only using triplus pens in different colours.  It's quite exciting to try out new products recommended by friends and most of them work very well for me, although there are a few lying untouched that I keep trying but then abandon again!

My family are my greatest love and drawing their portraits gives me a lot of pleasure.  I have a revolving gallery in our hallway where I frame the latest drawings as they are completed.  This one of Sarah with her cat Odin in graphite is a favourite.  I have a folder with all the portraits in and it's fascinating to see my progress over the last 15 or more years.

In the last year or so I've started to move in a different direction with my art thanks to my friend Luba who was the director of the Belarus fashion company. She gave me bagfulls of  samples which have inspired me to start using them as stitched collages using my sewing machine.  Each time she comes back from Minsk she brings another batch of amazing silks and linens, wools and jerseys in fabulous colours and textures that I can't resist playing with and turning into interpretations of my photos taken on our travels, like this one of Roussillon.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed our trip down memory lane, maybe if you have any friends interested in seeing what I do you could pass on my name, I would love to increase my readership.

MUSHROOMS FOR JULIET

 

Today is my sister Juliet's birthday and for her card this year I made one of my special mushroom needlepaintings.

 

I thought you might like to see how I build up the picture with layers of fabric scraps from my collection of samples from my dress designer friend Luba.

 

 

 

I was inspired by this photo I took in England in October and as you can see I found plenty of suitably coloured scraps in the stash.

 

 

This first part of the picture making is quite exciting as I never know how this random seeming jumble of bits pinned to a larger piece of plain brown gabardine will turn out.  I then started to stitch it all down with zigzags overlapping pieces as I went.  It all looks a bit of a mess at this stage!

 

 

 

I then added some cords stitched at angles for twigs and a few cut out leaf shapes with the veins stitched on first.

 

A close up shows the stitching and you can't quit see it but there's a bit of frayed cord that turned out rather nicely as it fluffed up like lichen.

 

 

I had a lot of fun with the mushrooms, zigzagging the patterns on the caps and overlapping the shapes to make a pleasing arrangement.

 

I added a fifth mushroom after I took this picture as I feel that an odd number is always a better composition and I didn't like that one bending over in the middle!  Lots more cut out leaves stitched on and I think it's finished.

 

 

I  mounted the picture on some red card and made a frame to cover the cut edges and posted it off in time for Juliet to open it today.  Happy birthday little sister!

 

 

 

 

 

FLOWERING SHRUBS PICTURE

 

I finally found the time to complete the picture collage of the flowering shrubs I started drawing earlier in the year.  I think I've managed to draw them all but I had to add a couple of drawings from my folder to make up the 20 I needed to fill the frame.

 

Back to sketchbook no 38 which I keep on the coffee table so I can draw in the evening when I sit down with my aperitif.  This little Hellebore plant came from Lidl and is a delight with it's white flowers turning lime green as they mature.

 

I had wanted to sweep the leaves in the garden for a couple of weeks but the rain was too heavy and the wind too strong and when the sun finally came out they had all been blown away over the bank or into my neighbour's garden.  There were some leaves on the flower beds which the black bird flicked all over the grass again though.

 

On Thursday I walked down the lane to visit a friend and came face to face with a wild boar grazing in a field.  I was disappointed I didn't have my camera with me but I kept the image in my head to draw when I came home later. I must admit I was pretty scared as these wild animals have a reputation for being very ferocious!

My friend Rose Jones sent me a lovely mushroom picture to draw so I decided to try some pointillism, it took ages to do but I think worth the effort!

 

Another friend also sent a picture which I drew in the Triplus pens washed with water.

MORE FROM SKETCHBOOK 38

 

Sketchbook 38 is still in progress since Inktober just not as frequently.  This sketch shows a handful of vegetables from my shopping one day.

 

I've seen these colourful fruit in the shops but never tried one so when I finally tasted it I was amazed at the delicious flavour.

 

Bob has a passion for single malt whisky and we treat ourselves occasionally to a small glass when the weather is depressing.

 I bought a parallel pen recently and I've been practising gothic script and drawing with it and although the ink runs when it's wetted, it has quite a nice effect.

 

This lovely mushroom was growing on the roadside so I picked one to bring home to draw.  I added the background later after catching a glimpse of the supermoon as it rose in the east on the 14th November.

A friend, Rose Jones, is a wonderful photographer who regularly posts her pictures on Facebook.

She gave me permission to use her pictures and this one caught my imagination.  I drew it first in the triplus pens and scanned it.

Then I washed the colour with water to give the misty effect.

Which do you prefer?

 

 

My granddaughter Sarah loves to take selfies to post on Facebook but I think she had some help with this one taken when she was sleeping on the sofa with her favourite cat!

MUSHROOMS IN THE FOREST

 

It's been another wet and windy week in Perros so I've been busy again with my sewing machine making a needlepainting from a photo I took while I was in England. Above is the finished piece before I stitched it into a cushion cover.

 

 

Here is the photo so you can see what I was inspired by, a fallen silver birch with a family of pale mushrooms growing in the crevices.

 

I thought you might like to see how I put it together so I took photos as I went along.  I started with a plain piece of cream linen and collected together a handful of scraps from my collection; mostly supplied by Luba from her fashion designing days.

 

I added pieces of string and cord to depict branches and some green patchwork fabrics for the leaves and mosses.  I had bought a pack of many different coloured threads recently so I was able to do lots of fancy stitching on top but unfortunately as they were a bit thinner than usual I had to go very slowly to stop the thread breaking every few minutes!

 

I built up the picture, layer by layer, decorating the mushrooms before I added them, my favourite is the lying down one just above the main group.

 

A couple of close ups so you can see the detail of the stitching.

 

I added some more leaves and crinkled voile for the bark under the mushrooms and decided that it was done.

 

I had some fabric left over from our living room curtains that I used to frame and back the picture and now it's a lovely cushion.

 

Here it is on the sofa with it's sister picture of Roussillon I made a few months ago.  Luckily the sofa is the one opposite me in the lounge so I won't be sitting on the cushion anytime soon but I can admire it from across the rug!