Idyll

Idyll

Reading Time: 2 minutes idyll/ˈɪd(ɪ)l,ˈʌɪd(ɪ)l/nounnoun: idyll; plural noun: idylls;an extremely happy, peaceful, or picturesque period or situation, typically an idealized or unsustainable one. I have been slowly developing a theme in some of my watercolour work. Talking to some of my musical and lyrical conceptualisation of Hiraeth, these are 

Small Florals

Small Florals

Reading Time: 2 minutes I have been playing around again with the thing that led to my resurgence in watercolour – You will recall a couple of years ago I purchased a small Cotman Florals Pocket Set – working with the simple method of small dots of paint which 

Snowy scenes

Snowy scenes

Reading Time: < 1 minutes I just thought I would post these as I am quite pleased with them and they are the beginning of a bit of a themed project over winter, These are sketches, based on mini-tutorials on https://watercolourlandscapes.co.uk/ on painting snow and mountains. Then I thought I 

Derwent Graphitint

Derwent Graphitint

Reading Time: 3 minutes While down in Norwich the other month, I could not of course resist the lure of Jarrolds art shop again. This is alternatively heaven, or a way to spend all the money you don’t have, if you are like me, with a mixture of high 

Trees on Foraged Grounds

Trees on Foraged Grounds

Reading Time: 2 minutes As I have mentioned, when making watercolours there’s always some left over in the mortar and I like to use this to prepare grounds for future work. These are some recent earths, on the poundland paper which I use for cheap expreimenting. These were inspired 

Plant Pigment Watercolours

Plant Pigment Watercolours

Reading Time: 2 minutes We are lucky nowadays to have a massive array of complex pigments and dyes at our disposal, both organic pigments such as Quinocridones, Pyrrols, Perylenes etc, and the increasing inoganic metal pigments still being developed – Sicopal Spinel pigments, Zirconium Vanadium pigments, the miraculous Yinmn 

Garden Sketching

Garden Sketching

Reading Time: 2 minutes I think we’vr had a marginally better summer this year, or at least subjectively, I have managed to experience more of it from somewhere otger than sat in the office. The other evening I took the new Mungyo colours out in the front garden in 

Mungyo “Passion for Masterpieces”

Mungyo “Passion for Masterpieces”

Reading Time: 9 minutes After picking up the Munyo “Nostalgia of Pastels” set a while ago I was interested to find a larger Mungyo set in The Range for £11.99. While I keep a large “professional standard” pallete it’s always nice to have a few more paints, and I 

Avocado Ink

Avocado Ink

Reading Time: 3 minutes Prompted by my continual playing with natural pigments in my paints, I made a batch of Avocado ink the other day. This is perhaps one of the better known vegetable dyes, creating a relatively stable and lightfast dusty pink colour. I’ve brewed up a couple 

Reflections on Making Watercolours

Reflections on Making Watercolours

Reading Time: 12 minutes It’s been a few months since I started off on the journey of beginning to make my own watercolours and I thought it was time of a bit of a review of where things are up to, as I have learned quite a lot and 

Micro Landscapes – The Return

Micro Landscapes – The Return

Reading Time: 2 minutes While working on some of my recent watercolours I was trimming my paper to the longer format, and ended up with quite a few offcuts. I hate waste, so I thought what can I do with these…. Practice some more miniature landscapes, that’s what! Working 

Lincoln in Watercolour

Lincoln in Watercolour

Reading Time: 2 minutes Of course, I took the photos from Lincoln, to work from for some watercolours. All of these are from random phone pictures in the end. The end of the weekend we went down to look round the waterfront, as this is close to the station