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Month: January 2019

Visit to the Natural History Museum
I visited the Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska) yesterday with my friend, Daniel Luther who is also an enthusiastic watercolour artist.
The museum is a great place to come and practice sketching during the winter months here in Stockholm. It’s -5 degrees outside and snowing at the moment so not great weather for plein air painting.
I chose to paint a swan first. When I opened my palette I discovered that red paint had leaked out into the mixing area, so I decided to us it as a background to the swan. It’s pretty dramatic but I like it 🙂
The duck sketch is definitely influenced by the famous Swedish watercolour artist, Lars Lerin. He has been to the museum in the past but I do not know if he actually sketched at the museum or just took reference photos. Does anyone out there know? Anyway, this sketch is homage to his style of painting.
It was a great day, I really should sketch away from the studio more often.
- Swan and ducks
- Swan
- Ducks
- Davdi and Daniel
- David poses
- My Field easel
- Painting in progress
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2019/01/31
Final watercolour of the day

This was the second watercolour I did at the Maritime Museum today. I was sketching a Viking ship model and I couldn’t resist putting the Stockholm archipelago into the background.
I hope I can be this productive tomorrow.

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Viking ship – Meldrum Art

2019/01/27
The good day continued …

I painted this watercolour at the Maritime Museum in the afternoon with my Urban Sketchers buddies here in Stockholm.

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Maritime Museum – Meldrum Art

2019/01/27
Good days and bad ones.

Yesterday, I went to life drawing and I couldn’t paint to save my life. Today, I couldn’t put a brush stroke wrong, an over exaggeration maybe but it certainly felt so. What a difference a day makes.
I continue to practice my portraits as often as i can. This one I did this morning before meeting my Urban Sketcher friends at the The Maritime Museum here in Stockholm.
Painted on Saunders Waterford Fine Grain.

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Meldrum Portrait

2019/01/27
Watercolour portrait

I am still practising my watercolour portrait painting techniques. This one took me a day to complete and I’m happy with it. It’s not perfect of course, not as far as I am concerned anyway.
I should be editing a film for YouTube, I will have to force myself from doing more portraits until I’ve completed the editing. The next Watercolour Journey episode by the way is from the Gaint’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.

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meldrum art portrait

2019/01/22
Watercolour painting while in a strange mood

I wasn’t feeling very well on Saturday but I was determined to get out of the apartment and meet my life drawing buddies. I just didn’t have the energy to perform well so I said to myself, “Relax and enjoy yourself”. So I did and I actually liked the result. It’s better to try a little than not to try at all.

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2019/01/20
Figure painting – the day after and having fun

I was life drawing yesterday using watercolours, I try my best to capture the pose in 5 minutes or whatever the decided time is. I of course run out of time which is okay as everyone does.
I have gotten into the habit of playing with these sketches the morning after, I start the day with a strong cup of coffee and I try to improve the quick watercolours I did the night before. It’s fun and just like kids I learn a lot by just playing around.

meldrum art nude

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2019/01/16
Watercolour portrait practice

I continue to practice painting watercolour portraits. Like I said before I use Sktchy App (iPhone only) for my model source. Even though there is a lot of faults with this I am quite happy with it. It’s a journey, like everything else it takes time to become accomplised at anything and watercolour is a difficult technique so it’s gonna take a while before I can fell comfortable doing portraits. Please do not ask me to do a portrait, it would just stress me out. Ask next year maybe! 🙂
Size: 31 x 41 cm on Fabriano paper.

Meldrum Art portrait practice

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2019/01/15
Capturing light is watercolour

Capturing light in watercolour is what we all try to achieve and it’s difficult, this is why I practice all the time. I just visited the Singer Sargent exhibition at the National gallery here in Stockholm one last time, it reminds me that I have far to go before I can call myself a master.
I am enjoying painting people and portraits, I think I will continue on this path for a while.

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Autumn light in the Stockholm park of Kungsträgården

2019/01/13