The boar tree - SOLD

The boar tree, ink on A3 paper

The roots of this roadside beech tree reminded me of a wild boar - I could see its head and one giant piggy trotter. I haven't deliberately enphasised either feature, not least because the tree is a beautiful sight in itself, with the large, sinuous branch to the left curving up like the muscular neck of a herbivorous dinosaur (I'm thinking diplodocus or brontosaurus), set against the sundappled screen of leaves.

Hanger: two drawings

Hanger, ink on A3 paper

Square Hanger, ink on paper, 29 x 29 cm

These two pictures were drawn to investigate the way that the beech roots cling to the steep slope of the hanger (a hillside wood). I had no intention of introducing fantastic beasts, but they crept in, nonetheless...

Downed

Downed, ink on A4 paper

I found this dragon lying between two roadside beech trees on Nuthanger Down, its tattered wings spread on the ground, looking intently up. Was there a squirrel up there? Or was it remembering its days of flight?

Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

Let Sleeping Dragons Lie, ink on paper, 29 x 29 cm

More serpentine beech tree roots, this time on Nuthanger Down, and this time in Noodler's Walnut Brown ink (which I think is based on the colour of walnut ink, but probably isn't made from walnuts).

Re-Henge: Dragon Roots - SOLD

Dragon Roots, ink on paper, 29 x 29 cm

The serpentine roots of the Avebury beeches, last seen in Henge, led me to imagine a mythical creature dozing on the bank. Has it become one with the trees and the earth, or is it just very well camoflaged?

Winter trees

Winter Oak (detail)

Winter is the best time to capture the structural essence of a tree. On a bright, clear day, the branches are dramatically stark against the sky, the patterns in the bark are unobscured by the shifting shadows of foliage (and any undergrowth will have died back a little, affording better access to that elusive perfect vantage point...).

These two pictures have been created as part of my preparation work for the Artikinesis exhibition at Sticks Contemporary in Gosport.

Winter Beech (detail)

Winter Oak

A3 (420 x 297mm), acrylic inks on paper

£75 

Winter Beech
A3 (420 x 297mm), acrylic inks on paper

£75

Ghost

Ghost. Oil on canvas, 38 x 46 cm

This, a different angle on the ruined chapel at the Holy Ghost cemetery to that seen in my last post, was painted for Artikinesis' Basingstoke Project. I posted it on the Artikinesis site, but not here. It uses a very limited colour palette - there is no red (this is offset a little by the warm brown of the linen ground). I used only Phthalo Blue, Yellow Ochre and Titanium White.

The painting was based entirely on pen sketches made on site and memory.

Not Just Roundabouts

I've always liked the old railway posters. A "Travel" theme prompted this attempt at evoking their spirit, drawn in Molotow One4All Markers on A5. Since Artikinesis did The Basingstoke Project, I have a wealth of source material on Basingstoke (less than ten miles distant and, one could argue - as indeed we did - in need of an image adjustment). This is from a line sketch of the ruined chapel in the Holy Ghost cemetery, not far from the railway station.

Last week for colouring book pledges

One of my drawings for the colouring book,
with a bit of digital colour added

The Artikinesis Art Colouring Book has less than a week of Kickstarter-funding left. This means that, if you wanted to pledge a small sum of money to help get it printed (and maybe claim a small reward at the same time), you will need to do so before midnight on Thursday 14 April.

The book will be perfect bound (not spiral bound - that's my sketchbook in the illustration!) and will contain 50 black and white drawings, printed on one side of 170gsm paper. Each artist is supplying ten drawings.

If you want to claim a book as your reward, you can have it straight for the retail price of £10, signed (by all of us) for £12, or signed and with your name on the back cover for £25 (as I write, only five slots remain for this option). Each preordered book comes with digital goodies (an extra drawing and a copy of the "K" files) that won't be available after the funding period.

Postage is £3 for the UK and £15 for the rest of the world. (If we don't incur any delivery costs, we'll happily refund the postage when we give you your book in person.)

And if we don't get the funding, we don't print, and any pledges that you might have made won't get claimed.

Just in case you do want to make a pledge, I've included a handy button here that will take you directly to the page on Kickstarter where you can choose your pledge amount and reward.

Tree near Ladle Hill (December)

There's this tree on the downs. It's between The Beeches and Ladle Hill, and it's very striking.

Trees and Seeds

This is a drawing made from a photograph that I took last Wednesday as I headed out on a longish walk on the downs. The trees may look familiar; they are the "Skyline" trees on Plantation Hill, featured in several of my paintings and drawings.

If you go down to the woods today...

2013 - Derwent Drawing Pencil on black paper (A3, cropped to ~A4)

Teddy bears can make interesting subjects. Many seem to have a character all of their own - especially the well-loved ones. Only one of the bears in this post dates from my childhood - but I had him before I was one year old, and he is certainly in the "well-loved" category. He's worn pretty well, though - I wonder if he's obviously the elder bear?

1998 - Derwent Drawing Pencil on white paper (A5)

1998 - Conté pastel pencil on white paper (A5)

A bit of car

This is an alternator that my husband acquired, disovered it was non-functional, and left in the garden.

Return to St. Peters Church

This is my second lunchtime sketch of this charming little church.

Garden Gate

A sketch before breakfast? Oh, why not?

Praa Sands - sketches

The day before we went to Marazion (Mount's Bay), the weather was dull but we were itching to visit the beach. The kids took their bodyboards; I took my sketchbook.

Wayland Smithy: Full Frontal 2002

The last time that I drew Wayland Smithy, it was a warm day in April, 2002, and I sat on the grass in front of the long barrow's entrance with pencil and A5 sketch pad:

Watership Down and Ladle Hill: Drawing Pencil

I really wish that Derwent had come up with a better name for these lovely pencils. They call them "Drawing Pencils", or, sometimes "Soft Drawing Pencils". Which could easily apply to a 4B graphite, say. (Aren't all pencils for drawing with? Even the H family - which I generally shun - are intended for drawing. Very precise drawing.)

I don't think that there is any graphite in these pencils. They are smooth and waxy and come in a range of muted, natural-seeming colours (the range is quite similar to the Sennelier "Nature" box). I now have the tin of 24 colours, which I think is all of them. I already had the earth-toned tin of 6, which I used for Study in Yellow. It's nice to be able to hint at blues and greens, and I think that the full range of colours suit this subject, which is from a photograph taken at around 5:30 pm earlier this month, when the sun was on its way down and the hillsides were in shadow.

Here's a slightly earlier, sketchier version in the earth colours:

Drawing on A4 paper

EDIT: There's a painting, too...

Study in Yellow

A drawing, today. I'm thinking of entering this in the Campaign for Drawing's John Ruskin Prize (the theme is "A New Look at Nature"). The deadline isn't far away, though - all entries must be submitted by 5pm on the 1st of June! Fortunately, in the first instance, they want digital images. So I might even have time to do a second image...

Edit: I didn't get shortisted.