sketchbook – Page 5 – Africantapestry

Posted on August 4, 2014August 4, 2014 by Myfrenchkitchen · 4 Comments

August sketching 4: Things I love.

I love old things. Things worn with time and loaded with stories. Old cups, old jugs, tins, doilies from Maman, teaspoons…And so today I sat by my table and sketched all these old things.

..Watercolor and pen in large Daler and Rowney sketchbook, 21x29cm..

(Apologies for the bad scan…I can’t get those dark spots away without changing the colour of the aquarelle)

While we are in the barn, I don’t have an art atelier, so in fact the whole barn is my atelier! I have a large table just behind our little sitting corner where I work when doing watercolors or drawings etc. All the brushes and pencils and pens are at hand in copper containers. Behind me(not seen on photo)is the large easel for when I do painting and all the oil pants are stored on a trolley which I store under the table. So, in fact, it works! One doesn’t need a fancy art atelier to do art! A little corner will do. I hope you too have your little corner, even if it is a corner of the kitchen table!

..my art corner..

à demain

Ronelle

Posted on August 3, 2014August 3, 2014 by Myfrenchkitchen · 4 Comments

Sketching in august 3: Market scene.

Sundays we spend either at a brocante or at the market in St. Cér2..and coffee and croissant of course! Today was market day in St. Céré with coffee. It was a crazy rainy day with the sun coming out every hour for 10 minutes before it came pouring down again. We sat at the corner café and while I sketched, mon chéri worked(played chess, I think!!) on his computer. I was happy with the sketch I did in pencil. I should’ve only added pen and be done with it, but I couldn’t resist adding watercolour and it all changed…pity.

..pen and watercolor in Derwent artist’s sketchbook, 140x210cm..

The scene from our table over the heads of other coffee drinkers…

..and the sketch halfway done, after the watercolor wadded but before the pen lines were added.

à demain

Ronelle

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Myfrenchkitchen · 4 Comments

August sketching 2

It is only day 2 but boy, I am having so much fun! I feel inspired, enthusiastic creative and just in the zone…how many of you can say that this evening? I hope it will last the entire 31 day of August…and beyond. Of course it won’t, but even just a little bit of it will be good enough.

Starting off with my café, which helps get me in the “zone”, I sketches the géraniums just opposite. It was raining, the tourists took up all the other covered spots in our small village, so I didn’t have much choice of going out. In the end I am happy I stayed, it turned out not too bad, after initially starting off a bit slow…

Once again, a lot of conversation around me, but it is good in teaching me to focus and listen at the same time.

I used yellow on the walls with touches of burnt sienna.
The roofs were done with ivory black and raw umber and blue.
The shadows on the canopies were done with a light wash of cerulean blue.
The geraniums done in cadmuim red and the greens in golden green, darkened with phtalo blue.
In the shade of the canopy in the background, behind the people dining in the foreground, a touch of light black ivory was applied for shadows.
In the foreground the people and tables just behind the stone wall, closest to me were done in bright burnt umber.
And lastly some yellow ochre touches here and there when the sun came out…

It is a good idea to test the same colour of different brands, because they do sometimes differ. In the above sample at the bottom left I have compared the raw umber of W&N with that of Sennelier. I prefer the Sennelier raw umber which is cooler than that of the W&N.

From top left anticlockwise to bottom: warm grey, naples yellow, burnt umber, raw umber, burnt sienna, raw sienna, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, cadmium yellow deep, lemon yellow.

My little pocket brushes are one from Arches…le petit gris nr 6, which broke at some time and I fixed it with tape and now it still works perfectly. The other is a Kolinsky that I have no idea where it is from. all I know is that I have used it for years, so much so that I have lost its cover and now use a piece of plastic that I found which fits over the brush. (See photos down below). So you can see, I am a bit like the mechanic whose car is always in pieces…But look ate those lovely brush points…hold as much or as little water as I want them to!

A new sketchbook from Daler & Rowney which I just discovered and am quite impressed with. The paper is not that heavy, only 160g, but it takes watercolor quite well and I don’t mind a little buckling in a sketchbook. The pocket brushes from top my precious Kolinsky nr 8 with its “unbecoming” plastic cover and the “repaired”petit gris nr 6 below.

..Kolinsky pocket brush 8..

..”taped” petit gris pocket brush 6

à bientôt

Ronelle

Posted on August 1, 2014August 2, 2014 by Myfrenchkitchen · 3 Comments

August sketching 1

I am a lazy person. There you have it. My biggest secret revealed. If I don’t have deadlines and projects and goals, I fall in a slumber of doing less and less and less until I start enjoying doing less. In summer that can happen very easily with the holidays and lazy summer days, lingering by the pool…. So I decided to do some regular August sketching and get back to those sketches I haven’t done for months, years even. No summer laziness for me then, but pens and inks and aquarelle en all these new sketchbooks I’ve ordered and papers waiting to be turned into sketchbooks.

I use the rotring art pen quite a bit, and the ink allows me to add a little water(not too much) to bleed the lines. See the little sketch of the ink bottle below which was done with a rotring artpen.

I also love drawing with inks and especially J. Herbin and Sennelier inks. They are good inks, easy to find and much cheaper than ordering inks from other countries, just for the sake of having inks.

…See, the pens are waiting!…pen and J .Herbin ink, “Café des isles”

My palettes are organized and ready in waiting, mostly comprised of Sennelier and Winsor & Newton watercolor in tubes and pans. The palettes still need more cleaning, but you will never see perfectly clean around my art table..it confuses me completely and I can’t work…too afraid I’ll make mess!

Color chart of all the colors in my palettes. Sometimes I get confused and start using one color thinking it is another, especially if they are close in hue, so it is good to arrange and make sure the right colors are in their right places.

I use about 40 – 45 colors in the larger palette. .which stays at home. Not that I use all the colors every time of course. My tiny travel kit, which I have been using for years now, take about 16 colors which is just perfect.

Colors for my smaller palette…still deciding between some blues and yellows, but I’ll get there. I feel like change sometimes..

In a later post I will cover my use of color and palettes, the inks I love, the pens, pencils…all very simple. I am by far not so prolific and efficient as the urban sketchers or other daily sketchers out there. But more later in the month…this is just to get me started for the month of August.

So until tomorrow…sleep well!

Ronelle

Posted on January 21, 2014January 21, 2014 by Myfrenchkitchen · 3 Comments

Three feathers in pen and aquarelle.

With this first post on Africantapestry, I wish you all a great year!

Yesterday I gave my art students some feathers to draw. They are beginners in drawing and I was highly impressed by the result. This afternoon I thought I should do a sketch of the same feathers. My geese and chickens aren’t shedding feathers at the moment and I dug into the chicken coop to find some decent ones..well, with some imagination they could come close to decent…But it actually made for an interesting challenge. We always think of a feather being perfect and pretty and soft..these were torn and scruffy and quite dirty and they smelled like chicken..

Voilà!

..Three feathers…

Pen and aquarelle in watercolour sketchbook, HP, 18x26cm

OK. Now that the ice is broken for 2014..let’s get out and (do) and see art, like my friend Theresa Andreas O’leary at Andreas art studio likes to say!

à bientôt

Ronelle

Posted on September 6, 2013September 6, 2013 by Myfrenchkitchen · 1 Comment

September 6: Four wheels

Since we moved a two years or so ago, I got stuck quite a few times in the winter’s mud and snow and slid into ditches and depended on farmers and their trusting tractors. Given that I hate a telephone and rarely have one on me, it takes forever to get out of my predicaments. So we said goodbye to our trusted old friend last year (Goodbye to an old friend )and mon cheri got me new four wheels. I am since then a happy country woman! I already got out of ditches, I wheelie in the snow with flair, and I make small change of our slippery winter road uphill…all without the help of Mr Farmer and his tractor!

Mon cheri of course thinks it is his four wheels! Oh well, I kindly allow him to think so…after all, he is mon chéri!

à demain

Ronelle

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