Watercolour Class, and a challenge

I teach a class for the local art club. On Wednesday evening I set a challenge for the students to sketch something every day until we resume in January. Could be pencil, pen or paint as long as it's a sketch of some sort. One of my favourite artists, Ken Howard RA, said drawing every day teaches you so much about observation and will transfer to your paintings.

The plan is to review what we have drawn when we resume. Whether or not they all do it I don't know but I must set an example. Not as easy as you think, trying to find something to sketch. I picked things up, put them down, didn't fancy that, or that, etc etc. Eventually I settled on a pepper mill and got to work. Today's was easier, I just looked out of the window and got drawing. Neither took very long. After all, the point isn't to make a work of art but just practice drawing.
So here are my first two sketches in a little A6 size sketchbook. I'll post more as I go along.

What do you think about daily sketching? Let me know.

Oil sketches

I have just added some oil sketches to the blog. Look out for the tab at the top of the blog.

Most of my oil sketches are painted in about an hour, sometimes less, so often look unfinished. They are just to get a feel for the place and, backed up by photos, are perfect to work from in the studio with a larger canvas.

As I learned from Ken Howard RA when I had the wonderful opportunity to paint with him in Essaouira, Morocco last year, you can't really spend more than an hour on the spot as the light changes too much to continue. You either move on or load up a blank canvas and start again.

I hope you enjoy looking at them. Here's one of them. Comments welcomed.

New page added

Hi there,
Just added a further page to the blog entitled Plein Air Paintings.
As you have probably guessed, these are paintings completed in the open air, on site amidst the hustle and bustle of busy streets but sometimes in the peace and quiet of the countryside.
Hope you enjoy them.

RS Hanna Gallery

I'm delighted to announce my paintings will soon be on display, and available to purchase, from the prestigious RS Hanna Gallery in Fredericksburg, Texas.
This is an exciting new venture for me and it's going to be wonderful working with Shannon Hanna, the gallery owner, in the future.
I believe paintings will be available from the end of this month.

www.rshannagallery.com

New Pages

I have added a couple of pages to this blog site showing images from my sketchbooks and some watercolour paintings. Please do have a look.

A small painting of Venice

Since the start of 2014 I've been looking through my photographs and sketches of Venice. I have dozens of sketches to work from but thousands of digital photographs. Venice is such wonderful source of subject matter.
Just to get the year kicked off I painting a small watercolour of a very popular scene, looking towards the San Giorgio Maggiore from near St Marks. Hope you like it.