meldrum artI found a wonderful model – posing beautifully. I will eventually paint a full sized homage to the image at a later date. I spent today doing two sketches, one watercolour with a Mucha inspired frame and the other in pencil. Both are about A5 in size.
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| Watercolour |
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| Pencil |
I learn so much each time I do a watercolour. I learn, that I should not draw so many lines, that I should be patient, that I should simplify what I see, that I should be more subtle with my tones and finally, that I should be more confident with my brush strokes.
This is a portrait of Micke Nybrink, he is a Trotting media journalist here in Sweden. Last week I created a web site in which he featured and this is where the image of him inspired me to paint him. You can see the website and his photo here if you like. It took me three lunch breaks to complete the painting, almost two hours I would guess.
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| Micke Nybrink |
Inspired by my watercolour sketches from the weekend I did another boat sketch today during my lunch break. I found my reference image on Google, I searched using the words, ‘Sailing and Archipelago’. The white foam created by the boat was achieved with office Tipp-Ex. 🙂
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| Lunch Sketch 20130702 |
It’s summer time and most people in Sweden disappear to relax and enjoy the short season of warmth. Either this or they are busy getting everything done before they take their holidays. So this month, I was the sole sketcher representing, ‘The Stockholm Sketchers’ group. It would have been nice with some company but I still had a lovely day.
I discovered that sketching boats isn’t easy, there is so much detail; so it’s a question of what one should leave out and what one should add to improve the picture. I’m happy enough with these two watercolours, sure – I made mistakes, I learned from them and I look forward to sketching boats again soon to see if I have indeed learned something.
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| Violette, Skeppsholm, Stockholm, 20130630 |
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| Leo, Skeppsholm, Stockholm, 20130630 |
I went out for a ride on my new bike this morning, saw this little van and I just had to sketch it.
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| Biro, A6 moleskin, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm, 20130629 |
Stockholm is empty on midsummer’s eve, only tourists walk the streets. Swedes are celebrating the year’s mid-point out in the country side and the archipelago. I decided to go for a cycle into town late in the afternoon and did this watercolour sketch of Stockholm’s Town Hall.
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| Stockholm Town Hall, A5 watercolour, Moleskin note book. |
I sketched this bored traveller in the airport bar on the way home from France at the weekend.
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| Bored |
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| Wrecks in Paimpol, Brittany. A4 Fabriano Paper, 50% cotton. |
Yes, I have a whole week to myself and I’m sketching and watercolouring intensely. The painting of the three boats below is my effort from this afternoon. I messed up the sky, I lost the white clouds I tried to create but otherwise I am happy with the result. Tonight, I will look at my Charles Reid DVD again and try and improve my cloud-forming-technique. There is always something to learn! 🙂
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| Holiday in Brittany. 20130528, A3 watercolour. |