Open Garden sketching

Back in June I had a lovely day sketching at Gillian and Jon's lovely garden, which was open to the public as part of the National Garden Scheme (NGS), which has lots of open gardens raising money for charity. 

You can see some lovely pictures of the garden and find out more about it by clicking here (it's closed now for this year), and here are some sketches I did during the day. 

Thank you! Commission

A couple of my friends recently cycled from John O'Groats to Land's End, raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support. 

They tweeted along the way and there are photos and some more info on their Twitter account: @IlesRideMiles 

They asked if I could make a 'Thank You' postcard (black and white) for those that helped and sponsored along the way and here it is in draft first...

 

And the final printed postcards:

July challenge...

Although not mentioned here, I gave myself the challenge to do a figure drawing a day for the month of July. 

I love people watching, and quite enjoy the challenge of drawing really quickly - just to try and capture a snapshot of them going about their business. These sketches are not very accurate nor detailed, nor (sadly) very flattering. 

From a window in my house I can see a stretch of pavement and can watch people walking down it - or only about 15 seconds (I'm going to time this to check how long it actually is - it certainly doesn't feel very long). If I look at the page for too long I miss someone appearing. If they are jogging it's a huge challenge. If they are cycling it's almost impossible (but I still occasionally have a go). My favourites are those that stop to think about crossing the road, but that rarely happens. 

On Friday, I sat there from about 8-9 and tried to draw as many people as I could. Their frequency increased as it got nearer to 9 and so the pictures get faster and faster. 

There have been some days when I've not drawn a member of the public... three days that feature the manikin as it had got too dark to draw anyone out of the window and no one was walking down the road anyway.

The July people sketchbook also includes 2 tennis players (from television footage), 3 unflattering pictures of members of my family (they are used to it), 7 of friends that I dance with while we were away earlier in the month, 2 pictures of my feet (always a rather desperate sign when these are my topic - they are the very last resort and appear infrequently in the drawing a day books). 2 cyclists, 2 people in front of me in the cinema, 1 picture of Meg Ryan from a film I watched and one incredibly rare self portrait! Just a few days to go, so I'll try and draw some more people from the window, or venture to the park as these are my favourite to do.

New designs

With wedding season here I have added a 'Congratulations' card to the shop:

You can order one here!

Colours...

Sometimes it is a bit of a lucky dip with my watercolours- what they look like in the box can look very different to how they look on paper...

So today I finally got around to making a reference sheet. I filmed it as I went which you can watch here is you wish.