Inspired by the Dorset countryside

I spent a lovely 10 day holiday in Dorset at the beginning of the month. Almost 10 days of sun and blue sky, and often not even a single cloud in the sky. At one time, we were actually saying that it was almost too much sun for taking photos... We took lots of little trips to some favourite places, like Charmouth beach, Brownsea Island, Kingston Maurward, West Bay (probably better know these days as 'Broadchurch'). I dutifully carried my sketchbook and pencil case on each and every one of these outings - and yet again, didn't get a single sketch done. Ah well, the intention was there. And one day, I'll get there...

West Bay with East Cliff

But our strolls around the Dorchester and Dorset countryside and coast has given me lots of inspiration. And of course I had my camera with me. I used photographs for reference and inspiration for the drawings below, done in pencil, after I got home.

The drawing in turn became an inspiration for a little oil painting. It's still a work in progress, and by the weekend it will hopefully be dry enough for a next layer. I still haven't really got a clue what I'm doing with these oil paints, but I'm enjoying it anyway. And I feel quite drawn to landscapes at the moment. It is probably all those lush greens out there right now, the gorgeous blossoms, the colours in the fields everywhere.

A beautiful day out, and some drawings

After my week in Scotland, I spent another 10 days in beautiful Dorset. We didn't do much, we were both tired and wanted to just simply relax and take it easy.

We did go on one long day out, though, to one of our most favourite places - Brownsea Island.

 Like last time we went, it was a glorious day, and there are many places, where you feel that you are somewhere completely different, somewhere in the Mediterranean instead of the English Channel.

Brownsea Island is the only place in Britain, apart from Scotland, where there are red squirrels, and they are one of the main attractions for people to visit.

It's easy to understand why, as they are such adorable little creatures.

We didn't see as many as last time, but we still got a few good shots.

The two that came to say hello were very obliging, and remained sitting on the branch and eating nuts long enough for us to take photos.

There are also lots of peacocks on the island, and they were very friendly too. A mum and her young even followed us all across a big meadow when they realised that we were having a picnic on the other side, to keep us company, and even followed us for a while when we finally wandered off.

The pheasant we saw later in the afternoon seemed a lot shier. He kept walking away and hiding when I tried to snap a photo. Until N, who was a about 50 meters away, got out a bag of nuts - and suddenly all shyness forgotten, the pheasant ran across the grass towards him, and even picked N's treats right out of his hand!

There are lots of chicken too. I was busy picking up feathers all day, and when I got my plastic bag out to put some more away, I suddenly found myself surrounded but dozens of chickens and peacock, running from all directions toward me, expecting a treat.

When leaving the island, instead of going straight back, the the boat takes a little longer tour all around Brownsea and between islands and back to Pool harbour. Another special treat after a great day on the island. Especially with an evening sky like this.

I haven't really gotten back into my studio since I got home from my holiday. I'm in a tidying up and getting rid of stuff mood at the moment, rearranging and reorganising things. Things tend to accumulate far too easily over the years and I find that it gets in the way of using what I actually want to use, and can end up not doing much at all. So the stuff that I don't use anymore has to go so that the materials I do use and want to use are ready and at hand. Some creatives work well in a chaotic studio, but personally, I prefer it if it's reasonably tidy. Which more often than not mine isn't. But I'm working on it...

I have done some drawing, though, and after the art week in Scotland, I'm especially drawn to the good old pencil again. I just love pencils - and I have far too many of them. Although, can one really have too many pencils?

Dorset cream tea, and other delicacies

There are any things I'm looking forward to when going to England, and one of the is the food. My favourites are not always necessarily the most healthy and nutritiously valuable choices. But they are certainly delicious. And after all, when I'm there, I'm on holiday...

We hadn't had a cream tea in ages, the last time was well over a year ago, so we decided that it was definitely time for one. And we knew exactly where to go. Our all time favourite place for the best Dorset cream tea - Downhouse Farm café. It's not exactly easy to reach, but well worth the journey, both by car, and even by foot (it is quite a bit of a walk up there). It is high up on a hill, not far from the cliffs, a beautiful, peaceful garden to sit and relax - and enjoy a rich cream tea (and draw it). Homemade scones, a big pot of locally made clotted cream, and an equally big pot of delicious homemade strawberry jam. It's so rich, that it makes a full meal, so we always go there for lunch. 

The last bit of the way is one of those very narrow country lanes, with bushes on both sides, and there's been an argument between the locals and the council about who's responsible to look after a certain stretch of it for quite a while. As a result, it is in a very sorry state, and getting worse and worse every year. The first time N had taken me there, it had already been bad, with big holes everywhere. By now, the holes have become so deep, that someone has put bricks into them, to make the road passable at all. The result is that you not only have to drive at about 10 mph max, but that even then, all those holes make the car shake thoroughly, that you just can't stop laughing, it's so funny. It's like being on a funfair rides. We had aching bellies and tears streaming down our cheeks by the time we made it to the end of the stretch. I wonder what the state of the road will be like next time we go there.

Another classic, and guilty pleasure - N made cheese on toast for breakfast on many mornings during our holiday. Well, we were out and about all day, so we needed something substantial to start the day with...

Custard tarts always make me think of one of my favourite, classic tv series - As Time Goes By. One of the characters, Lionel, is very fond of them and always gets very, very grumpy if someone else in the household dares to eat this custard tarts. I can understand him :)

But of course there's more than food. A late afternoon, when the sun suddenly comes out, spent on the beach in West Bay.

And I always enjoy visiting the lighthouse on Portland Bill, on the Isle of Portland, and spending some time wandering around there. It's a special place, somehow. And of course, lighthouses are always fascinating.

The joys of travelling by air, and how not to get overwhelmed but keep on sketching

I'm back from a wonderful holiday, which, as usual, went far too quickly. The journeys were rather less enjoyable, though. My very early morning flight to London City Airport got cancelled due to technical problems, and I had to travel to Heathrow instead, which meant that I didn't catch my £14 pre-booked train from Waterloo but had to by a new ticket for £58. My suitcase wasn't on the same plane either, and I didn't receive it until after 8pm the following day.
My return flight was cancelled again, this time due to the heavy thunderstorms over Europe. That, of course, is nobody's fault, but I was beginning to get rather fed up. Luckily, I had arrived at the airport very early, and was re-booked to an earlier flight. Like all the other flights, it was much delayed, and while we waited for another 45 minutes on the plane to finally be able to leave, three passengers were asked to leave the plane again because it turned out that it was too heavy. I've never heard of anything like that. But I was very glad that they hadn't asked me...!

I decided to contact the airline, since this was not the first time I've had problems. Cancellations and and delays seem to have become the norm in the past couple of years, and I'm happy to say that they have agreed to reimburse the extra costs I had as well as giving me a generous voucher for my next flight. So all is well again, and I just hope that my next upcoming journeys in September and October will go a bit smoother for a change.

But anyway. On to more pleasant things. I took my drawing tools, watercolours and two sketchbooks with me on holiday for some outside sketching. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but I have always found it very intimidating and overwhelming. But this time I was determined. I had even treated myself to not only a new box of watercolours, but also some new watercolour brushes, including two beautiful travel brushes. One of our first day trips was to Tintinhull Garden, a charming little house and garden, and when we arrived there, the sun had come out and it was warm and bright blue sky. So no excuses. I got my gear out, switched off my brain and started sketching. I always find it difficult to get the proportions right. My drawings usually tend to get far too big. So instead of trying to capture the whole house, I just focused on a detail, starting with with the bird statue and then added whatever fitted in.

I love visiting those old stately homes and gardens. It's a perfect day out for me. Some interesting history, furniture and art work in the houses, gorgeous flower gardens (with lots of opportunities to photograph bees on flowers), park and woodland walks, and a restaurant to enjoy a lovely lunch and tea breaks in between all the strolling. And the parks are filled with trees. Beautiful, ancient trees.

On Sunday, we drove to Salisbury. Again, after a grey start of the day, the sun came out, and it got hotter and hotter. I never thought that I would ever say the words "it's too hot to sit outside in the sun!" in England! But it certainly was. Thankfully, inside the cathedral and cloister, it was nice and cool, and there were plenty of seats to sit in the cloister to sketch one of its arches.

Glastonbury was a new place to discover for both of us, and a fun place to spend a day. It has a lovely town centre, with almost every shop specialising in some branch of the esoteric. A bit weird, but very charming. We spent most of the time in the grounds of the abbey, though, and much of it sitting on benches in the shade. Another hot and sunny day. The two watercolour sketches were made in different journals, the one on the left in a Seawhite sketchbook, the one on the right in a Moleskine watercolour journal.

Forde Abbey was probably my favourite of the stately homes we visited. The house itself is a 800 year old former abbey, and the park and gardens are just gorgeous. Again I took some time to sketch while N wandered around taking some more photos. The hedges caught my eyes, and of course the trees.

Montacute House was another place we spent a lovely day at. Apparently, it's where Wolf Hall was filmed. I never watched the series. I tried but struggled with it as much after five minutes as I had struggled with the book after the first 30 pages, and eventually gave up, as I had with the book. Again, I was fascinated by the trees in the grounds. So much variety, so much character.

I'm so glad I finally got over my fear of sketching outside. It's not as hard as you think, and most people leave you in peace. Of course Ns comment of "Oh that's good!" on every sketch I did was also very encouraging :)
What helped me most, though, was to approach it with no expectations, and to do what was possible. Of course I would have liked to capture more complex scenes. The entire house. A corner of the garden. But that's still a bit too challenging for me. So instead I keep focusing on the details for the moment. A part of the house or ruin, an arch, trees. Instead of getting frustrated by what I can't do, I enjoy capturing what I can do, knowing that every drawing, every sketch is valuable practice. I'm sure one day I will be able to do those "bigger" sketches I'm dreaming of now. It's all practice, and doing the job. And my holiday sketching has given me so much confidence, that since I got back, I've done some more sketching in public.
I have some more sketches that I'll share next week, and I also hope to post some photos in a separate post. But it'll take some time to go through them and do all the editing.

Drawing found memories

I'm really enjoying drawing at the moment, trying out different materials and techniques. I always loved pencils, but watersoluble pencils are quite new to me. But they're great and a nice way to add some body, layers and texture, and all you need is a pencil, a brush and some water, so they might make perfect travel companions. I have taken out my art journal again, which I haven't used in quite a while, but which I should do more often. Such a perfect place to play and experiment.

I've been collecting feathers for quite a while now. Or maybe collecting is the wrong word. I tend to just pick them up when I see a nice one, when I'm leisurely strolling around. Which I usually only do when I'm on holiday, which in turn means that almost all of my feathers are from England. Mostly from Hartfordshire and surroundings and Dorset, while walking around towns and villages, National Trust parks or the beach. I kept them all in plastic bags, hidden away in some stash boxes, when I finally got them all out and together in one place a few days ago. Lots of pigeon feathers, of course, but also a couple of beautiful duck feathers, crow feathers, swan feathers and a few that I have no idea what bird they come from.

A Dorset holiday in Polaroid

It's already over a month since I returned home from my holiday in beautiful Dorset. Where's the time going? Before I left, I was thinking about taking one of my Polaroid cameras along, but wasn't sure if it would be worth it. My trusted SX-70 Alpha 1 was the preferred candidate, but if it was going to be all grey and rainy, I wouldn't be able to get a decent shot. Well, I couldn't have been any more wrong about the weather. It was sunshine almost every day, and often actually almost too bright. I had ordered three b&w films to N's place before I left, so that I wouldn't have to carry them with me and get them damaged in the x-rays at the airport. But something was very strange with those three films. All of them showed strange spots and streaks appearing, and blown out areas at the bottom. I had taken lots of b&w photos the month before, same film, and they had all turned out well. I was beginning to worry that somehow my camera had taken damage during the trip, but when I put a colour film, that I had bought on our day trip to London, into the camera, I was glad to see that it definitely wasn't the camera. I don't know what was the problem with those films, whether they got some damage somewhere on the way from the factory, where just out of a bad badge, or if it was just too bright. I still treasure all of the photos I took, and I'm so glad that I carried the camera with me, along with my DSLR.

I have 30 photos from my holiday. Below you can see them all, wrapped into a story made with Steller.

Charmouth beach stones - more drawing

This week, I spent two nights drawing for almost two hours. I'm trying to get (back) into a habit of drawing regularly, and spending more time in my studio. Especially in the evenings, when you're tired from work, it can be hard to motivate yourself to get off the sofa and pick up some pencils. Even if you actually like it, and know that it will make you feel so much better than just spending the entire evening in front of the tv. Why can it sometimes be so hard to shake off such bad and irrational habits? 

I've also been thinking a lot about style and techniques. How so often our inner critic/perfectionist puts those images of how your drawing or painting should look like before you even got the first brush stroke or pencil line down. How difficult it can be to put those expectations aside and just follow the flow. I know exactly how I would like to be able to paint or draw. And it doesn't always work. So I'm trying hard now to ignore that voice, and to approach my canvas or sketchbook without expectations (I even taped a reminder up on my easel), and just let it flow. To find out what comes naturally, and then take it from there. I had something else in mind when I started drawing the first stone, something that didn't involve blending and making it all smooth. But then I couldn't help picking up my blending stick, and I spent two evenings happily layering and blending and getting lost in details.

During our holiday, we went to Charmouth beach. One side of the beach is sand, the other side is stones, quite big ones, that make it quite difficult to walk (but is very popular with fossil hunters). I loved the beautiful big smothes stones with their white veins running through them, that were lying in between the other stones, and I took some photos of the them so that I could draw them later.

A wonderful holiday, and some hand drawings

I'm back from my holiday, and what a wonderful time we had! When I left two weeks ago, I expected it to be wet and miserable, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Almost two weeks of not a rain drop in sight, and more often than not, not a single cloud in the sky either. What a pleasant surprise. We made the best of it, exploring new places along the Dorset coast, re-visiting some old favourites, and even went up to London for a day. I was able to completely switch off and forget about everything. So much so, that I actually had to call my Mum to ask her to go to my home and look up the pin code for my banc card, as I couldn't for the life of me remember it. Completely gone. Unfortunately, after having returned back home on Tuesday, and back to work on Wednesday, the whole relaxing holiday feeling has already disappeared completely, and all the daily negative stuff, that I so successfully managed to forget about, has swept back in one single big wave.

But anyway. I took a sketchbook and some drawing materials with me (and visited the local art shop more than once). I took my sketchbook and pens with me a couple of times, but it was either too windy or we were too busy exploring for any sketching to be done. But I managed to do a few drawings some of the evenings, when I wasn't too exhausted (and a couple of watercolour sketches, which turned out so bad that no one will ever see them. Except N, who has already seen them, and wasn't impressed with them either). I've been wanting to practice some hand drawing, and with not much else on hand, that's what I did.

Of course I took loads of photos with my DSLR, and even some with my Polaroid SX-70, and I still have to go through them all. I'll probably post a few photo posts soon, but here's just a couple of shots, one from Brownsea Island, where we met some lovely red squirrels, and one from Charmouth, where I just couldn't get enough of the reflections in the low tide water on the beach.

Red Squirrel, Brownsea Island, Dorset

Charmouth Beach, West Dorset

As my happy holiday feeling quickly disappeared already the day after I got back from my holiday, I decided to keep the memories alive and fresh by posting the Polaroids I took over the next days. I have 30 photos, so it's going to be 30 days of happy holiday memories. I'll post them on Instagram and Twitter, and maybe Facebook too. Follow me, if you like (my new Twitter account is looking very sorry follower-wise, and I'm still waiting to finally reach the 100 likes milestone on my Facebook page). #30daysofholidaymemories.

I'm linking up again to the lovely Paint Party Friday. I'm afraid I posted my last post while I was already on holiday, and as I wasn't used to N's notebook/laptop with no mouse, I had to give up trying to visit and comment. But I hope to be better again this week.

Holiday Photo Sunday: A happy day in West Dorset

A little collage of a happy day spent on the West Dorset coast, including my favourite place for Fish & Chips, one of my favourite walks along the cliff tops, and my first time ever playing Scrabble. 

These were taken earlier this year, in March. I still have to go through all my photos from our summer holiday, and hope to share some soon, but I've just booked my flight and train tickets for my next holiday in West Dorset and I'm so looking forward to it, that I had to go back to these.

Happy Sunday!

Penguins and Seals

I still got so many photos of amazing creatures left, that I'm going to split them (well, some of them) into two separate posts. This one is for the Humboldt Penguins and the Common Seals. The penguins didn't really do much, but they were fun to watch. And they kept standing or sitting still or moving only little, which was of course perfect for taking pictures of them.

I don't know how long we spent watching the seals, but it was quite some time (and long enough to miss the little train back to town by just a few minutes). They were one of the first we went to see in the morning after we arrived, and we went back to them again in the afternoon. N lent me his big zoom lens to get some really nice close ups. It was fascinating to watch them swim and dive (they like to swim on their backs) and to stick their heads out of the water and observe their surroundings. Their noses look a bit like those of gorillas!

One last post with more sea creatures to follow soon.