Still Life
-
Emmanuel
Matthew’s gospel refers to the newborn Jesus by the prophetic name Emmanuel, which means “God with us”. A simple yet profound concept, but one that is hard to draw! John’s gospel has a more metaphysical take on the whole nativity story, yet similarly tells us that “the Word [of God] became flesh and dwelt among…
-
Bird Tile
These tiles were almost ubiquitous in Britain in the 1970s – my parents house built at the start of that decade had them on the bathroom walls, and the house I am currently living in (coincidentally also built in the early 1970s) still has these tiles on the walls of one bathroom! As I was…
-
Primroses
The plants which grow best in my garden are those that are often labelled as weeds! I’m not sure whether primroses are normally classified by others in this way, but given how vigorously they self-seed and then grow in my lawn they seem to fit the bill. However, they have the advantage of being colourful…
-
Limes
I have become quite partial to limes of late, so a lime being cut open on a chopping board is quite a common sight in our kitchen these days. I was quite keen to paint a lime that looked as if it had the taste I crave from the fruit. In all honesty I think…
-
Wet Flowers
Having been advised to try watercolour paints on posh proper cotton watercolour paper, I decided to have another go at the “wet on wet” approach, where the paper is dampened before the paint is applied. It turns out that the amount of water is quite critical! My first go at what I thought would be…
-
Christmas Pudding
They say it is best to create a Christmas pudding early to give it time to mature – so here is a drawing of one that I made a few years ago! Ink and pastel crayon if my memory serves me well. Enjoy … and compliments of the season!
-
Time to Peel
Here is another re-used (or if you prefer “re-purposed”) quick sketch from the lock-down era, intended if nothing else to burnish my credentials as an eco-artist! This one was originally a simple pencil sketch of a potato peeler, which through the magic of a drawing app is now the hour hand on a kitchen(?) clock.…
-
Murano Glass
The island of Murano is of course famous for producing stylish glassware, a lot of which seems to find its way into the tourist shops of nearby Venice. This particular vase was actually purchased on Burano, another island in the lagoon which is not geographically very far from Venice, but which is (to borrow Hardy’s…
-
Summerhouse & Shelter
I have already commented on the bad weather we had during our recent visit to Ichi-Coo Park. Early that afternoon we experienced a really heavy downpour, so I took refuge in a summerhouse which was the driest place I could find, and started drawing on the only “waterproof” pad that I had – my iPad!…
-
Monkey Warrior
The Grand Palace in Bankok contains many amazing sights and some wonderfully intricate buildings. During our visit my eye was particularly caught by several of the statues, and in particular by these monkey (or demon?) warriors that support two enormous chedi, or stupa. This drawing is a close up of one of these characters, one…
-
Wrist (&) Watch
My wrist, and my watch, cartoon style. This was an interesting exercise in drawing shiny things (watch) and hairy things (wrist). Given that the drawing app allows you several goes at getting something right if necessary, I have iterated to a version of the drawing that looks okay, and hopefully learnt something about appropriate technique…











