Saturday 7 November 2009

Mushrooms

In my garden I have an annoying clump of mushrooms that grow each year near the base of one of the apple trees. I usually try and remove them as soon as I see them, and since they grow in my lawn, they are almost always hacked up by my mower. Because of the way mushrooms leave their fungal spores in the soil, I even tried replacing a square of grass so as to discard the infected area, but still they grow.

This year, due to my inability to deal with them at the appropriate time, they have been left to grow. Today, with the sun shining nicely and me having time on my hands, I wandered out there with my camera and have loaded the results to my web site .... www.JWJonline.net/Mushrooms/.

I've tried searching to identify the strain (? variety) of mushroom but have had no success so far. If anyone knows, please let me know. ;-)

Monday 2 November 2009

Knaresborough

A short while ago I did a quick pen sketch of Knaresborough, a small market town in Yorkshire. This was the view from the castle, along the valley towards the railway viaduct.

For a bit of fun I decided to print the sketch onto watercolour paper and add some colour. It was an interesting exercise especially in view of the small size of the paper (7" x 9") and the amount of detail in the sketch.

Sunday 1 November 2009

Halloween


Just a quick sketch of a pumpkin for Halloween.

Actually, this has been set as a Drawing Project for members of the art forum, and all of the entries can be seen on this page.

Tuesday 27 October 2009

Brixham Harbour

I recently spent a fabulous week in the Torbay area and visited the beautiful small town of Brixham with its active fishing harbour. In the harbour is a replica of The Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drakes famous ship. This sketch was with non-permanent ink and a brush with clear water was used to 'pull out' the shaded area's. This is a medium I'm particularly fond of.

Wednesday 30 September 2009

Market Hall, Chipping Campden


Built in 1623, this Market Hall caught my attention on a recent visit to the Cotswolds. All of the buildings in Chipping Campden, and other towns in this area, are constructed of this yellowish, locally quarred, limestone.

Tuesday 29 September 2009

The Shambles, York


This is a pen & wash of The Shambles in the City of York. For any who don't know, this is a well-preserved medieval street of timber houses. Though I'm very pleased with the end result the painting hasn't turned out as I'd wanted. What I had intended from the outset was to draw the scene with a pen and then add only a minimal amount of colour, leaving the pen lines to do the 'talking'. Regrettably, as is so often the case, I didn't know when to stop and I've applied a lot more colour than I'd ever intended. I wouldn't have thought it would be so hard to NOT paint up to the lines and to leave some white spaces here and there. I also think the picture lacks a focal point.

So, I had a second go at this scene. The first thing I decided was to draw in the people jostling past the shop windows. This helped with the focal point issue. The other thing I did was force myself to use weaker colours and put my brush down once I'd laid in some washes. This still isn't the 'minimal colour' effect I was aiming for, but it's much closer.

I would really welcome any comments with regards to which version works best.

Knaresborough


In the Autumn of 2008 my wife and I holidayed in Yorkshire, not far from the market town of Knaresborough. The town is situated on a cliff top overlooking the River Nidd. The cliff makes a fine natural defence and so it was a logical choice to build a castle. The castle has largely gone now but it's remnants are well displayed in a perfectly manicured park area that overlooks the river valley. The view from the park towards the railway viaduct with it's fine arches bridging the valley, is quite breathtaking.

This pen study will never do justice to the beautiful view, but it was fun to do. I find the challenge of going straight in with the pen (no pencil guidelines first) very rewarding.

Monday 31 August 2009

Ingrid J Ormestad

I'm delighted that my very good friend Ingrid Ormestad has agreed to be the subject of my first "Artist Showcase". For this first showcase we have selected a range of her work from one of her first watercolours, through to her most recent acrylic. In future showcases we will concentrate more on a particular genre, such as Ingrids superb mountain landscapes.

Thursday 27 August 2009

Artist Showcase

As a new feature in my art forum I've decided to 'showcase' the work of selected artists. Each Showcase will be a selection of up to 6 paintings or drawings, complete with text that can either be about the artist, or about their art. The Showcase will be by way of a dedicated page on my web site and will also be linked to from my other art site, the forum and this blog, as well as being mentioned on Facebook and Twitter. Each Showcase will stay on the net for at least one full month, or until such time as another artist requests Showcasing. Any artist who already has a web presence will be able to link to their site from the Showcase.

The first Showcase is under construction and I hope to launch it any day.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Hover Fly

I am gradually building a collection of photo's of the flowers in my garden with the objective of showing that the garden has something flowering every month of the year.

You can see what I have so far on "My Garden" page.

On this particular occasion I was taking a photo of a Dwarf Dahlia that has a lovely peachy/orange colour but it was being visited by a Hover Fly.

I brushed the fly away a couple of times, but he insisted on coming back, so in the time proven spirit of working with what we have, I made the fly the subject.

For the technically minded, I was interested to learn that there are over 6000 species of Hover Fly. Looking at the most common, I suspect this one is Episyrphus Balteatus. Despite their wasp-like markings, they are harmless and gardeners should delight in their presence as they feed on Aphids.

Before taking these photo's I hadn't realised how colourful and beneficial these little chappies can be. We live and learn. ;-)