Drawing of Gumleaves and a Few Recent Watercolours

*Graphite pencil, coloured pencil, and a little watercolour…this is on Reeves 300gsm, (eco friendly) premium drawing paper. Although I love to use cotton paper this paper feels delightful to work on with coloured pencil. It’s acid free, and quite white – which helps the colours to stand out well.

When I’m out walking I often gather some gumleaves – to admire their colours and shapes, as well as to swish away the flies, in our hot Australian Summers. They’re a long time favourite to draw and paint. You can see more gumleaves in my ink pen and watercolour, here.

Below, a few recent dabblings.

The top one is in gouache on A5 toned tan paper. The bottom right was begun with a Pentel brush pen, then watercolour – A6. The other two are in ink pen and watercolour – A6.

Ink pen and watercolour. I put a border around it in the Pages app; then took a screenshot…Though there are other apps I can use to put on a border. Then words are put on in the “Phonto” app. I use “Image Size” to resize my images for use in my blog.

Ink pen and watercolour 5” x 7”, on Strathmore, hot pressed watercolour paper. I began with a little coloured pencil, (and a little graphite pencil) but decided this was not quite the smoothness I like for coloured pencil. The paper is not as warm a white as it looks here.

I began with watersoluble Graphite crayon (Lyra 9B) – just swishing the brush over it to get a lovely dark wash and I like the sparkles from the graphite… then watercolour washes, and a little ink pen. On Khadi handmade paper, which is whiter than shown here – taking photos of it at night, not a good idea! About 4” x 6” – A6.

Still working on my “rusty” acrylic painting skills; and putting together little handmade sketchbooks – I’ll share some of that soon.

I find it does help to write a bit about my art here – as well as being a great way to keep track of my art travels; I hope at least some of it will be of help and interest to others. And rather pleased that my blog is becoming like a long illustrated book. As I’ve mentioned before in the middle of a post, here, I may print much of it, to become like an “odd kind of family heirloom”.

Thanks for visiting! Stay safe.