Watercolour sketches #1. View from our deck

A couple of breakfast watercolour sketches of the view from our deck this morning. These are miniature sketches, about an inch or an inch and half tall.

Looking towards the Taraua Ranges

 

Looking towards the west, and the Upper Hutt hills (or the Akatarawa Hills?)

I've seen a number of people online doing a 30-day painting challenge. I missed the cut-off and this might have been too ambitious for me anyway, but I am going to try and do a painting a day (ha ha ha), or at least one or two a week.  

Book from the sketchcrawl at Oriental Parade

I make a little bound book from the sketchcrawl that we did recently at Oriental Parade in Wellington. I had always meant to do that, so I had done my sketches on a page of watercolour paper, already marked with the pages that would be cut out. This is to send to one of my friends overseas, who has never been to Wellington.

The front cover

The inside pages:

This is the centre page, which is a double page sketch. I ummed and ahed about whether to paint it, but decided to leave one uncoloured pen and ink sketch in there.

 

Most of these sketches I did on location at the 42nd Worldwide Sketchcrawl. However, I realised that the book looked a little blank without the otherside of the pages filled in, and I wouldn't have a chance to go back to Oriental Parage to sketch for some time. So I did some extra sketches from photos.

Face a week #39

Another afternoon sketch. Prismacolour sepia pencil. Unfortunately, I think my four year old has run off with my eraser and hidden it somewhere in the house. Darn.

I loved this woman's large expressive eyes and serious smile.

Worldwide Sketchcrawl #42 Wellington

I went to the Wellington Sketchers meetup for the 42nd Worldwide Sketchcrawl. After a pretty mixed bag of weather this summer, we were really lucky to have a wonderful warm summer's day.

We sketched around the marina and the boat sheds next to the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club.

I did a panoramic sketch for the first time. It was the nearby Ocean Sports Open Day today and we saw people learning to kayak, windsurf, and standup paddleboard.

 This is the Monastery on the hill behind Oriental Parade.

This is a fellow sketcher sketching, although I have to say my sketch looks nothign like him!

We moved down to the boat sheds and this is the view looking east along the waterfront. There were quite a few people using their boat shed and going out sailing.

As I waited for my husband to pick me up, I managed one last sketch. I saw this staircase just before the meetup and wanted to sketch it, but didn't quite have the courage to stand beside the road and do it. But I felt fine doing that after the meetup. Wellington has lots of secret, steep staircases like these, joining various roads along the hillsides.

I did them all on one page as I am planning to bind them in a book format.

We had a great day and it was really fun to sketch with everyone again, especially since we knew people all over the world were doing the same today.

A face a week #38

I really loved this woman's confident and slightly mischievous smile: there's no airs and graces. She is just being herself. In the sketch below, I thought the woman had lovely smiling, hooded eyes, and an interesting smile: a wide smile, but with closed, almost pursed lips. I used a Prismacolor Sepia pencil and a blending stick for both of these.  

 

Shoreline just south of Kaikoura, South Island, New Zealand

Printing another checkers game

I made this game for my husband for Xmas. Quite the rush printing it the day before, with the ¨help¨ of my kids! It is a kind of variation of checkers, where the aim is to end up with the piece which is in the middle of your row in the centre square. The various pieces have different rules for moving. I didn't make up the rules for the game - I saw it in the shops just before Xmas, and printed my own version. The stamps I used to print it are the same ones I used for the handmade checkers game a few years ago.

New Year arrivals

Wow - I got sent these amazing art supplies by the best penpal ever (you know who you are!).

I had to try the sepia Prismacolor pencils straight away. They are amazing to use. I am definitely a convert to these. I love the Big Yellow Bee paper too.

 

Plus a bit more practice drawing hands: