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February art: Aquarelle in the coffeeshop.

Still digging deep to jiggle my art back up, I sat in the coffee shop this cold and miserably grey morning, squiggling lines left and right.  After a while I gave up, closed the Stillman & Birn and rove to the garden center, where I loaded my cart with shrubs and trees and perennials. Everybody else was buying forced bulbs for their homes. I was probably the single person in France out in the cold rain, behaving only as one should in the midst of spring…going out on the planting. Well. It helped. I feel I can take on some more sketching this evening…make my hands work while my head is in spring, planting.

chairs and coffee table in coffee shop

pencil in Stillman 1 Birn sketchbook, 14.5X22.5cm

prendre the

Potplants in coffee bar

Watercolour washes and Pentel brush pen in Stillman & birn sketchbook, 14.5X22.5cm

chez cecile

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Horse sketches

Our post card exchange has now come to an end, sadly, but maybe we have something new in the pipeline.

I sent Desiree horse sketches ..she and her family had horses at an earlier stage. Our two Comtois horses were my models  and the sketch on the envelope I did from one of those sketches.

Gubi(envelope)

gouache and pen on envelope

Gaitchi and Gubi

done with pitt artist pens in sketchbook

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Sketching the rooftops of Vayrac

For my postcard to Pat, I was in Vayrac, handing in all my old linen to be washed and went for a coffee. Afterwards I looked over the rooftops and realized I haven’t done such a postcard yet. So there.  The rooftops of Vayrac for Pat.

..rooftops of Vayrac(envelope)..

done in gouache and pen

..rooftops of Vayrac..

done in pen and watercolor on Daler and Rowney watercolor paper CP, 25,4×17,8cm

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Sketches of cute sheep.

A sheep and lamb or two from our neighbors camp. If all goes well and I can convince my husband with my sweet puppy eyes, I might just have my own cute lambs this spring!

…Sheep and lambs 1…

pencil, pen and watercolor in Daler  Rowney sketchbook CP, 254x178cm

…Sheep and lambs 2..

pencil, pen and watercolor in Daler  Rowney sketchbook CP, 254x178cm

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Colors and foliage of November 3.

I found some beautiful grays…some more bluish, others more yellowish and greenish and some just simply…gray.

…grays..

watercolor and J Herbin inks on Hahnemuhle paper CP 15,5x25cm

Doing the above sketch  was very quick and dare I say easy, without sounding obnoxious? I’ll tell and you can decide…

  1. With a goose quill and nib and “gris nuage” ink from J Herbin, I drew the outline of the twig/branch with contour lines.
  2. I added a wet was over the areas that I wanted to highlight as the greyish moss, in the process flooding some the water soluble ink lines.
  3. I dabbed in some light dabs of indigo, prussian blue, paynes gray, ochre and raw umber on the wet areas. To finish off the background, I dropped some paint , using the same colours,  from a loaded brush to loosely suggest random patches of moss.
  4. Lastly I finished off with some dark paynes gray(little water, lots of pigment, to give very dark values, suggesting the small dark corners between the moss.

..J Herbin inks and goose quill…