Red Barn Snow Scene

I had a break from landscape painting practice over Christmas but I'm getting back into it now. This was supposed to be for my December Watermedia challenge, but I've only just finished it. First time I've painted snow and it didn't go too badly.

More Landscape Sketches

More of my landscape practice sketches..

Watersoluble and dry Coloured Pencils

Watersoluble and Dry Coloured Pencils

Watercolour paints plus Watersoluble and Dry Coloured Pencils

Penhale Sands Sketches

Just realised I forgot to post these landscape sketches of Penhale Sands in Cornwall...

Lots of Landscape Sketching Practice

I've been continuing to practice my landscape sketching in water media as much as possible. Here are some of the better ones:

Landscape Sketches

I've been wanting to have a go at learning landscape techniques for a long while and I've finally started. I've been reading up and watching tutorials, and have started a practice sketchbook. I started out drawing with ink lines but I don't like the look of the ink lines so I've abandoned the ink pen and now I just do a quick light pencil sketch to map in the main shapes before adding colour with watercolour paint and watercolour pencils.

With initial ink pen sketches.

I definitely prefer without the ink lines.

So I'm finally on my way with my landscape learning journey. I'm keen to keep it loose and immediate,  not to tighten up and focus on detail (as I tend to with botanicals and wildlife). I think a lot of practice is going to be needed, but I'm really enjoying it, which is all that really matters.

Brown Hare

Finally finished this brown hare, which was actually supposed to be a tutorial project. Unfortunately the tutorial booklet turned out to be terrible - completely useless for guidance (so I won't mention the artist's name). I quickly stopped even trying to use it and just worked from the photo and the artist's original drawing. I'm pretty pleased with how it eventually turned out.

Blue Tits

I drew these sketches of blue tits a while ago but forgot to post them. I think they are slightly too fuzzy-looking in texture, but I'm happy with the colours.

Rose Hips

Another botanical sketch I forgot to post previously! Coloured pencils on Winsor & Newton sketchbook paper. This paper is not suitable for layering coloured pencil, so I really struggled, but managed eventually to achieve a reasonable range of tones and fairly rich colours.  The scan hasn't done it any favours though - the colours of the different types of hips look very similar here but they actually aren't.

Botanical Sketches

Some more coloured pencil sketches - I did these back ago in the autumn but didn't get round to posting them!  I was trying out different papers with these, trying to figure out which sketchbook paper is best for dry pencil and which works well with watercolour pencils (I used a wash of watercolour pencil as a base layer for the poppy seed heads).

Sycamore Seeds:

Dried Poppy Seed Heads:

Honesty Seed Heads:

Pussy Willow Stems

I wanted to see if I could capture the fuzzy quality of Pussy Willow buds in coloured pencil. I used the embossing technique before adding colour, to retain some bright white lines. I realised afterwards that it would have been much easier to use coloured paper to make the white buds stand out, but overall I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

Adonis Blue Butterfly in Coloured Pencil

My first large butterfly study in coloured pencil. I found the hairy body extremely difficult to capture accurately - with such tiny pencil strokes it's very hard to retain the highlights. I loved using all my blues though - they are the least used colours in my box! (Unfortunately the scanning process has made it look all shade of blue, but actually I used everything from Light Cobalt Turquoise to Indanthrene blue.

Colouring Books for Practice

I've just discovered that botanical colouring books are a really fun way to practice shading techniques and try out colour mixes.

I wanted to find the perfect layering recipe to achieve rich dark colours for 'black' berries like elder and blackberries in coloured pencil, so I started out just drawing circles or rough freehand berries for my experiments, but then remembered that I had a couple of  (never used) colouring books which included images of blackberries and other fruits, so I got them out and had a go.

It was great! It was so much fun that even after I figured out how to do the blackberries, I wanted to finish the page. I'm obviously not going to stop doing my own drawings, but for practice, relaxation and stress-free fun, I'm definitely going to carry on using colouring books!!

This page was from the (very beautiful and luxuriously bound...) colouring book 'The Flower Year' by Leila Duly. Her artwork is absolutely gorgeous - really inspiring.

Page from 'The Flower Year' colouring book by Leila Duly, coloured using coloured pencils.

Crab Apples

I'm trying out different sketchbook papers, to see which I like best. Some work much better with coloured pencils than others. Here's a study of crab apples I did on Winsor and Newton sketchbook paper. I like the brightness of the colours with this paper.

Goldfinch on a Teasel

I'm really enjoying drawing birds at the moment. Some of them don't turn out so well but I'm pleased with this one. It's coloured pencil on sketchbook paper.

Based on a reference photo by Darren Bellerby on Flickr (CC 2.0 license)

Geranium Botanical Study

Geranium 'Johnson's Blue' Cranesbill.

We have this plant in our garden and the bees love it. It's the first time I've used cuttings of all the different parts of a live plant in the studio (although I did take photos too, because I work so slowly!)

It's a sketchbook spread in coloured pencil.

Bumblebees

Bumblebee sketchbook pages.

And my version of an identification guide of common British bees.  The artist of the original guide kindly gave me permission to use it as a reference guide for my coloured pencil version.

Bee on Foxglove

I've joined a challenge group on my art forum. Each month there is a theme and we all paint/draw an offering within the theme. Reference photos are provided, which we can use or not as we wish. It's good fun, and nice to feel part of a group.  This was my first month's submission. It's coloured pencil on smooth hot-press watercolour paper.

Pied Wagtails

I love Pied Wagtails and their jaunty tail-bobbing. They always seem so cheerful.  These are coloured pencil on sketchbook paper.

Siberian Iris in Coloured Pencil

This is actually an exercise in one of my Billy Showell instructional books (A-Z of Flower Portraits). I did it in watercolour first, but then I decided to also do it in coloured pencil, and I prefer this coloured pencil version.

Coloured Pencil Sketchbooking

Some of my sketchbook pages.