Here’s a quick A5 sketch, done in my A4 sketchbook.

The subject is one that I revisited from a couple of years ago when I was painting a lot of trees in preparation for a tree themed exhibition.

It’s only as I’m writing this that I thought to dig out my first sketch:

This sketch ended up being mounted, framed and sold before I took any better photos of it.

And the two together for comparison:

I like them both, but at the moment, the most important thing is how much I enjoyed the physical act of painting. It was great to get my paints wet, to mix on the palette and on the page and to see the colours mix and mingle.

It’s early days but after quite a while of feeling in the doldrums about painting, I think that there are definitely some green shoots of hope that, fingers crossed, may well flourish again!

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For the past seven or eight years or so I’ve posted every Wednesday of every week, pretty much without fail or exception!

Today, however, is a Thursday and to compound my embarrassment even further, it took my daughter to point it out to me that I’d totally got my days mixed up and without even realising it I’d broken a remarkably (for me at least!) consistent record of Wednesday blog posts!

I’m afraid I’ll have to make the most of it and celebrate a continuing consistency of just plain old weekly blog posts!

Continuing in a not too dissimilar vein, I’m actually quite surprised that my latest little misadventure hasn’t happened to me long before now (or even regularly come to think of it!)

I’d just sketched out this A5 study that I’m thinking might work at a larger scale when I toppled a full glass of red wine right over my sketchbook!

As much as I quite liked the effect of this first wash, I decided that to not carry on with the sketch would be a total waste of a good Tempranillo!

Here’s what it looked like when I’d finished:

…and with the tape removed:

The view is of a side street near the beach in the  Barceloneta.

Spilled wine aside, I was pretty pleased with how this turned out and am looking forward to having a go at scaling this up a little larger!  

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It hit 37 degrees in Barcelona on the day we left, and we arrived home to the hottest day of the year in the UK so far! Even though this was around the 30 degree mark, I still really missed the air conditioning of our Barcelona apartment!

The heat did affect what we were able to do and experience a little, and it took us a day or two to adjust. I had hoped to do more on the spot sketching, but it just wasn’t really possible. Instead, I tried to capture as many references as possible and to sketch from them when we were back in the apartment in the afternoons while seeking refuge from the hottest part of the day.

I did a number of these sketches but for today and brevity’s sake, I hope you won’t mind if I just share my pick of the bunch:

It’s a simple scene but I think it captures the intense light that almost illuminates the greens of the trees before casting wonderfully dark shadows.

What I was particularly pleased about with this sketch was the figures, which I tried to spend a little more time on than I often do but without overworking them.

I daresay this trip will continue to influence the subject matter of my paintings for a long time to come. Most of the photos I took were on my camera rather than my phone and I’ve yet to download them to have a proper look through them. Fingers crossed there’ll be a few pearls amongst the inevitable duds!!

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To finish that particular episode off, I returned to the beach again at about 7am the next morning to continue my search in daylight. It was more in unsubstantiated hope than expectation but I also felt there was nothing to lose by trying.

To my utter delight, after about ten minutes of pacing up and down the beach, there they were, lenses up on the pebbles and seemingly none the worse for their night out under the stars!

It was such a huge relief because I’m increasingly reliant on them in so many aspects of my life, not least my painting!

Work continued to be fraught to the very end but my impending holiday offered a desperately needed bit of light at end of the tunnel. (I say end of the tunnel but I’ll be right back into that tunnel’s pitch darkness as soon as I return!)

Late yesterday afternoon (Tuesday), we arrived in Barcelona to be greeted by bright sunshine and 30+ degrees of warmth! It was immediately transformative and the stresses and strains of ‘normal life’ began to ebb away!

Here are a few snaps of Barcelona style inspiration so far:

There are times when the expression ‘a change is as good as a rest’ seems especially true, but a change and a rest is just wonderful, and it’s already proving to be the perfect tonic!

It’s a little too hot in the middle of the day to be out and about much, which provided me with the perfect opportunity to get a bit of air conditioned sketching in!

Here I am at play in my holiday studio!

And my first sketch of the holiday (with the added pressure of it being the first page in a new sketchbook)!

Hope that anyone and everyone that gets to read this is also able to get a change of scenery and a rest in this summer!

In the meantime, I look forward to returning next week topped up with rest, relaxation and lots of inspiration!

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Here are a few more recent ones. They’re all done in my A4 sketchbook and each image is just over A5 in size:

I grew up in Yorkshire on the edge of the Pennines – a large moorland area just north of Manchester. There’s something about this view that really reminds me of the landscape that reared me.

No particular emotional attachment to this view! I just really liked it and thought it would be a fun challenge to paint it.

I have some exciting news to share about Eastbourne which led me to paint this subject! I’m afraid I’ll be saving the details of this news for another time, so I hope that this little sketch will suffice in the meantime!

At some point I’ll do some self indulgent tape removal on these and a lot of the other sketches I’ve been working on! It’s always so satisfying and who knows, I may have a few worthy of mounting and framing!

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This is one of my recent favourites.

Sometimes, it can just be the simplest of things that catches your eye or strikes a chord. This sketch is just such an example.

We took our barbeque up to a local park the other evening. The weather was glorious with the sun still up, but gradually setting behind the tree line. The park was surprisingly quiet and it just felt so peaceful and spacious.

It was so nice just to have the time and space to relax and to drink in the views and appreciate the surroundings. Even a simple a scene, of the bright sun catching a tree trunk had a quiet, tranquil and timeless beauty about it.

I was quite pleased with how this one turned out.

It’s a big day tomorrow here in the UK as we vote in the general election and, if the polls are anything to go by, we’re heading for a dramatic shift of power in Westminster and across the country.

I don’t know why but I find it hard to believe that it will be the first change in the political leadership of this country since long before I started painting again in earnest at the beginning of 2016!

I know that all of this has very little to do with me mucking about with my watercolours but, whatever your political persuasion, it feels too big to allow it to pass without a mention!

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As we’d just experienced biblical rainfall whilst camping over half term, the prospect of an entire UK summer holiday camping trip plagued by rain filled me with an overwhelming sense of dread.

We decided to take drastic action, forfeit our commitment to camping at every opportunity, and to throw some money at the situation! The upshot is that we’re excitedly looking forward to spending a week in Barcelona, one of our favourite cities at the end of July!

To celebrate, here’s a Barcelona study from my sketchbook!

This is an another A5 study and, from all of this that I’ve completed of late, it’s probably my favourite.

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This is unapologetically brief on the text front due to circumstances beyond my control! I’ve already missed my usual self imposed deadline’ to publish before midnight every Wednesday and am already 10 minutes into Thursday and desperately need to get some sleep!

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One of the many advantages of having been painting so long now is the ability to recognise this phase for what it is, i.e. not a big deal, and also to have some strategies for how to keep going, even when you might not necessarily feel like it. One of my failsafes is my sketchbook.

Here’s a quick sketch based on a photograph that artist Laura Darling posted some time ago from one of her favourite walks:

This is a little A5 study where I was keen to find a shorthand way to convey bright yellow field of rapeseed flowers.

The nice thing about this kind of sketch is that it keeps you thinking and keeps the brushes moving without the focus being on the end product.

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Here’s my sole sketch from our time away, painted inside the tent during one of the many deluges!

Typically, since returning from holiday, the weather’s perked right up!

Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to get a little more painting than this done before next week!

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