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Sketching chickens and cows

W are living a whole saga of chickens, running for a few months now, but that is a story for some other day. For now, here are Tartelette and Omelette, the latest addition to the chicken chronicles. They are two Bantam de Pèkin, porcelain chickens, and SOOO cute! Now being fully adapted and taken ino the Van Wyk household, they reign alongside the cats. In our home, the humans take second spot in the limelight. Here they are just lazing in the barn by my feet. It was raining outside. They don’t like to get wet. And the barn is comfortable.

Th cows roaming the hills have a beauty all of their own. With their velvety brown eyes and long lashes, they love attention and eagerly respond to “vient, vient!” hoping for a delicacy, which is quite often the case…a branch of poplars held out to them, or soft green grass.

The bottom sketch is done on a different day, in a different sketchbook where the paper has more texture. Some of the cows look rather like dogs…or bulls…or even rabbits? Let’s just say I’m out of practice(sic)…

All sketches done with rotring pen and watercolor in CP watercolour sketchbooks(400g/m²), 26x18cm and 25×15.3cm.

until next time..!

Ronelle.

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 11 Comments

Sketches of a future kitchen window an an apple tree.

Work is still continuing here at Coin Perdu. I made a sketch of my future kitchen window from the outside in. It will be one of my most favorite places in our mountain home, that is for sure. From the inside it has the most stunning view and I can already imagine the inspiration on my cooking!

On a  late afternoon, while the fire was crackling for our dinner, I stood at a little table with watercolor, black Indian ink and a charcoal stick and just scribbled down an apple tree down below. The paper was far too small for such an exercise but it was the only ones I have here. I’d like to do this again, but with large pieces of paper. the exercise was good though, bringing a bit of freedom to a stiff wrist.


The bottom sketch (to the right, apple tree 2) is upside down. I put down the tree trunk in ink with a big brush, left it to dry, took off to see to the salad and when I came back, the wind took it from the table. I picked it up and watercolored int he foliage, only to realize after a while I did it upside down. Well, it still served the purpose, not needing to be good art.

All sketches done in Indian ink with Japanese brushes, watercolor and charcoal sticks on CP watercolor paper, 29,7x42cm (11 3/4″x16 1/2″)



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Wildflower sketches

In spring the wildflowers are just beautiful. At Coin Perdu, the hills are covered yellow Pissenlits,  ( dandelions). On my sketchercise walk, I normally only take a pen or pencil, but since this was a long but leisurely walk, I took my watercolour paints as well. Put on my straw hat, walking boots and wandered into the hills, losing myself in the sun and flora.

All sketches done in my Coin Perdu garden journal with pencil and watercolor.

…buttercup and dock…

…dandelions…

…our wine crate table top which greeted my on my return…

…the latest addition to our family…Petronella and Stephanie…

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Sketches of a rock garden

I’ve started my garden at Coin Perdu. We are still working on the house, so I am limited to where I can garden for the moment. A rock garden close by the barn we’re living in for the moment works good. It also serves as a little lay in garden where plants can with for their permanent place in the garden. It was hard work, since it is a little grass covered hill that I had to dig out, remove the grass, lay down big bolders, fill with rocks, treat the soil, add compost and all necessary, leave it to settle and then plant some plants.  It still needs work, but for now it is filled with plants loving sun and rocky corners and it has steps that lead up to a little corner on the hill where a bench waits patiently for someone to sit and admire my handiwork…? It is adjacent to the old pigsty, that will soon become my laundry room and the bench will be a welcome repose from all the washing that needs attention on a farm!

The top sketch is of bags with compost and soil and stuff(I don’ t have my own yet!) and some plants from the pepinier(I don’t have my own  hothouse yet!). the second sketch is the rock garden, just competed this morning.

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Sketching with greens

A post for Sketchercise:

This morning’s walk provided me with greens.I have to admit that I don’t enjoy drawing/painting/rendering leaves. Maybe it is the greens in them I shy away from. I find green a difficult colour to paint in watercolour as well as oil, or any other medium. Beautiful in nautre, difficult to render. Too much green can make me feel quite ill. The wrong greens can look very artificial. Green can easily look flat and lifeless. Like white, green isn’t just ..green. It absorbs and reflects its environment and by looking closer you’ll see browns and reds, yellows and blues…a whole spectrum of colour. And then we get transparent greens and saturated greens, which you can’t paint with only green from a tube or pan. Even oils are difficult and mix differently than watercolour, for one – we have a white which can be added to green in oils, then making it less transparent of course.  Which explains why I rarely paint with green, but prefer mixing a green. And I love to mix it directly it on my paper or canvas to have the colours flow into one another, giving dimension and vibrancy and life, even if the green isn’t the “perfect” green. I sometimes add olive green(Schmincke) and the very different olive green(W&N).

Please do tell how you paint greens?!

…apple branch…

branch with apples

In these three sketches, I have used more or less the same palette:

Cobalt yellow pale(W&N), cobalt yellow deep(W&N), yellow ochre light(Schmincke), lemon yellow(W&N),french ultramarine(Sennelier), cobalt blue(Sennelier), Prussian blue(Sennelier), Cerulean blue(W&N), Paynes gray(W&N), burnt sienna(W&N), raw umber(Sennelier), olive green(Scmincke).

…walnut branch…

branch with walnut

…acorn branch…

branch with acorns

All sketchesdone with  rotring pen and watercolour in watercolour moleskine

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Walk and sketch 1

A post for Sketchercise.

With a little bit of time on my hands I put on my heavy hiking boots..urgh.. and took off for a walk. All the flowers on shrubs have made room for berries of all colours. Since I am in the process of noting all the fauna and flora in this area, I dragged along my  sketching palette, which is boringly still the same as you’ll see in this link, except that my sketchbook might be the small moleskine or the normal one…watercolour of course. I like the paper of the watercolour moleskine.

Tokala and Aiyani tailed along, until they realized to their horror that we were going further than normal. That had them plonk down under the apple tree, all the while complaining about my imbecility. On my promise to give them joghurt back home, they sulkily agreed to wait under the apple tree. I kept my promise.

…prunellier and aubepine…

berries 1

…bramble, stinging nettle and dock leaves…

berries 2

All sketches done in rotring pen and watercolour in watercolour moleskine.