NEW SKETCHBOOK, NEW THEME

 

I've reached a milestone starting sketchbook number 40 and I thought I would dedicate it to drawing portraits of my family over the years.  There are over 60 pages so I have plenty of scope to practise my drawing skills copying photos and trying to achieve a likeness.

 

It all starts with my Granny, Mae Gritten who I became very close to in her later years, but who sadly died when I was 18 and had just had my baby, Justine.  She was a great support to me as my Mum was very busy coping with the rest of the family as my father had died only the year before.  I remember going to her maisonette to wash and curl her hair every week and her telling me stories of her girlhood in Africa, how I wish now I could recall those tales!

 

Here is my Daddy, Arthur Clarence Priest, aged about 48, I'm not totally sure what year he was born but around 1907 I think.  He was quite a bit older than Mummy and had been married twice before he met her and already had two daughters from the second one.

 

Mummy was very beautiful as a young woman and I have several lovely professional photos taken at the time.  One of my reasons for starting this collection of portraits is to celebrate her centenary in 2019 as I would like to make a stitch patchwork of her family which I'm sure will take a couple of years to complete.

 

Mummy always hated this funny photo of herself aged 10, joking about the pudding bowl haircut!

 

Here I am aged nearly 5 as it says on the back and I already had my uncontrollable hair!

 

Jumping a few years to 1967 and this is my brother Christopher aged 17, he was tall, good looking  and quite athletic, being in his school swimming team.

 

Lastly today is my darling sister Rosi, sadly taken by cancer in 2003.  She was the cleverest of us, passing her exams with A grades and becoming a successful architect after studying at Sheffield university.

SKETCHBOOK 38 FINISHED AT LAST

 

The scallop season has finished here now but for a few weeks we were able to buy the freshest seafood from our friend at the port. One day I asked her for a few shells to draw and she kindly washed a handful for me.

 

 

The flat side of the shell was perfect for printing with so I did a bit of experimentation using my own pigment paints to make these outlines before putting a tiny local drawing in the middle.

I found some decorative mouldings in a local store and used them to decorate the page by drawing round the outlines and then shading with my crayons.  A nice way to spend a cold winter's afternoon!

 

 

At Christmas I bought a couple of stems of fresh dates from the bio co-op which were delicious but first they had to be immortalised in the sketchbook!

 

I had a lot of fun collecting leaves and berries in the garden to make this table decoration for  Christmas with a fat church candle in the middle.  It lasted at least a week being kept moist and I'm sure some of the pittosporum twigs had started to grow.

 

I still put up the Christmas tree every year and use the mat my mother embroidered in Sweden when I was a baby to stand it on.  I have decided to pass it on to Jo now as she has her own home and a family to appreciate it.  I have drawn all the motifs together and I think this might make a good Christmas card, what do you think?

 

There's a saying that when the gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season, well around here it blooms all year and we always greet our friends and neighbours with at least two kisses on the cheeks!

 

We take a walk around the port at least once a week and I'm always on the lookout for interesting birds.  The egret is there all year round but his other ones stood out from the usual cormorants and gull with the crest on it's head.  I took a few photos and blew them up on the computer so I could identify it and I'm pretty sure it's a red-necked grebe.  I have seen it a couple of times now and have discovered it's quite a rare bird, normally seen on the east coast of England.

Sketchbook 38 is now on the shelf and I've started on number 40 which has a different theme but you'll have to wait till next week to see!

MORE BIRTHDAY CARDS FOR BOB

 

In 2010 we went south to Sanary sur mer on the Mediterranean where we had a wonderful holiday on a campsite within a good walk of town where we took our rosés before lunch nearly every day.  The waiter at our favourite bar soon got to know us and didn't need to be told what we wanted, he even gave us a free drink on our last day!

 

 

In 2011 I achieved a long held dream to visit the village of Roussillon where the famous ochre pigments used to be mined.  We found a campsite a short cycle ride from this beautiful hilltop town with a fascinating museum depicting the process of extracting the pigments from the raw stones quarried nearby.  I used paints I made myself with raw ingredients bought in the village for this, one of my favourite paintings which shows one of the processes of refinement of pigment.

 

 

In 2012 we celebrated our ruby anniversary and for a change we took a flying holiday to Corsica and stayed in 2 separate resorts, Ajaccio and Porto Vecchio, from where we visited Bonifacio. This lovely old town on the south coast has amazing cliffs with the houses built right to the edge as we saw when we took a boat trip along the coast.

 

 

Another dream was fulfilled in 2013 when we spent our summer holiday camping along the Cotes du Rhone villages wine region. This is a wonderful part of Provence where the Romans had settled centuries ago and left many monuments still standing today, as here at Vaison la Romaine which I am looking forward to revisiting as we left early that year due to the mistral which gave us both really bad chest colds.

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In 2014 we finally got round to building our garden sheds so I made a 3D card for Bob's birthday for a change with layers of tools and other equipment in a folding out card.

 

In 2015 I spotted an MGB in a car park just like the one Bob had when we met in 1970, so photographed it with the intention of painting it for his card.  I even remembered his registration number!

 

 

Now we are up to date with the latest card, a needlepainting of a sketch of our boat, Chardonnay of Solent.  I had a lot of fun designing and making this using scraps of fabric, ribbon, and silver thread.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB

 

My husband Bob celebrates his birthday on December 25th and every year I paint him a special card as we don't exchange gifts, preferring to buy what we want as we need it.  This first one was done at the end of our first year living in France and depicts a local view at Trestrignel plage we used to walk to when we stayed in the port on the boat.

 

2004 has a painting of Fort la Latte which we had visited during the summer and later discovered was featured in a very old Tony Curtis movie called 'the Vikings' which of course we watched on Christmas day.  Shame it's a bit wonky!

 

In 2005 we were spending a lot of time sailing near Treguier and walked along the river Jaudy to find this beautiful aqueduct.  We met a German lady on the river bank who told us about the French lessons she attended in Lannion and we soon joined her there too and improved our mastery of the language.

 

In 2006 we bought the camping car and one of our first trips was to the Loire valley where we visited Saumur and the beautiful chateau that overlooks the river. 

 

2007 and we took a guided river tour of the Nile and despite it being in French we were able to understand all the commentary and thoroughly enjoyed the company of our fellow travellers.  What we saw on the journey was one of the most amazing and unforgettable experiences of my life, I've drawn and painted lots of the statues and views from my photos since our return. 

This is Derwent drawing pencils on black paper.

 

In 2008 we headed south in the camper and visited Carcassonne, another long dreamed of city after reading the novel by Kate Mosse.  This is done in coloured pencil on tan paper.

 

In 2009 we went to the Pyrenees and stayed near Lourdes from where we visited the Cirque de Gavarnie, an amazing glaciated valley with fabulous mountains and views all round.  Bob was unable to walk too high up the hills as he suffers from vertigo but I went all the way and took photos so he could see the views from higher up. 

Next time I'll post the next seven year's pictures and you'll see something a bit different!

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!

 

 

 

 

 

A PEEP INTO SKETCHBOOK 39

 

I have a tiny Moleskine sketchbook in my handbag to use when I'm out and about but I haven't posted much from it lately.  Here is a sketch from October, just before I left for my visit to England.

This is one of many pink granite statues in and around the town where we live on the Cote de Granite Rose.  The sculptor has used several different coloured stones to make this charming statue of a girl with her dog.

 

One of our favourite afternoon walks is along this lovely beach with views across to the little chateau Costaeres built on an island that can be reached at low water springs.  The Sept Iles are in the distance with the lighthouse on Ile au Moines.

 

 I was in England to spend a few days with my daughters and while at Justine's I had the opportunity to see a few episodes of Game of Thrones, a series I'd heard a lot about never seen as we don't have Netflix or Sky TV channels.

 

Justine's annual fancy dress party had Game of Thrones as the theme so I was very interested to see the real thing, especially as I had imagined and made my own costume before going.

 

We spent several hours together on the Sunday afternoon binge watching TV and recovering from the night before and I was able to sketch all the beautiful dresses.

 

The costume designer had a fantastic imagination, each character had her own style and colour scheme which continued as the series went on.  I'm looking forward to seeing more episodes next time or maybe one day we'll get round to buying the box set!

 

Last weekend was our Marché de Noel in the village and I was there volunteering on the Twinning Association stand on the Saturday, selling English products like Christmas pudding and crackers. 

 

On the Sunday we met up with our friends to partake of the mulled wine and scallop kebabs followed by a performance by the choir in the chapel of Notre dame de la Clarté.

 

 

As you can see I took the opportunity to sketch as we listened to some of our French friends singing so beautifully.

 

 

I've found this drawing of the chapel from a few years ago so you can see what a beautiful old building it is, dating from the 15th century and built in the local pink granite of course!

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.