I was up very early this morning and having a go at tidying the office, man I'm so punk rock these days. I found a pile of bereavement cards sent to the family when Dad died. I stopped to read them and began to miss him. A lot.

Then I spotted something on Facebook that Neil Morrison had written about spending some inspiring time with visually impaired folk. My Granpa was blind and I do some work with sight loss charities so Neil's comment resonated with me.

This sketch emerged from my morning's ponderings. I guess it's a mixture of bereavement, blindness, and a little of me too.

I was staring out of the window at Friend's House earleir this week looking at this tree. It stood out because it had much less greenery on it that the other trees and plants round about, so I sketched it. 

I think this is an awful picture. The colours, proportions, everything feels wrong. In an attempt to capture realism I've done this poor tree no justice whatsoever. With hindsight I wonder if I might have tried to frame the tree in the window I was looking from. I'll have another go next time I'm in the area but for now, this will serve as a useful 'how not to' reminder.

One of my fave bands, Rush, have a new single out soon titled Headlong Flight. I like the song and the title, and after a couple of listens I got to thinking what does a Headlong Flight look like? I'm going to attempt a series of illustration style sketches to try and capture that meaning. Here is my first attempt.

For the first  time I've put some of my sketches in frames. These photos don't really do the framed sketches justice but I like the effect that framing has had on them and wanted to share it with you.

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framing-cbJyhsrCjamkfAAiyEoI.zip (1.68 MB)

I've just returned from a couple of days working in Newcastle with some great customers. I stayed overnight on Tuesday which led to me dining alone that evening. Although I went to a very good Italian restaurant (Sabatini's) and enjoyed good food and good service, I don't enjoy dining alone. I took water colours and a small pad with me and started to paint.

So what is this picture all about? I guess the tree is me. Alone and stripped bare (this is my mood we're talking about here - not my state of dress!). Dancing around the tree are vague outlines of creatures, a cross between something woodland and something quite sinister. I don't think they represent my fellow diners, at least I hope they don't!

After sketching this I was drawn into a Twitter conversation and my mood improved quickly I'm happy to say. And this is the first time I've really felt like my mood has so heavily influenced what I've painted.

The main colours in this picture are purples and browns with some bluey grey. For all you colour geeks I used Paynes Grey, Raw Umber and French Ultramarine for the tree, and Windsor Violet for the background (which was mainly applied to wet paper). The colours were drawn from the decor in the restaurant, though I should say they create a much more welcoming atmosphere there than they do in my picture!

Keira and I were walking home from school yesterday and we noticed how blue the sky was, and how many magnolias are in flower just now. When we got home I had a go at trying to capture the hints of pink and mauve in the magnolia flower, and combine it with the very blue sky. I've tried to use a little white space to indicate where the edges of the leaves might be. Importantly I made no attempt to try and capture realism, just a thought of what we'd seen and talked about. There's something about this picture I quite like - I hope you find something in it to enjoy too.

A thoroughly underwhelming day with the paintbrush today. I had plans to spend most of the day painting and started out trying to paint a flower which had bloomed early alongside some of its neighbours, which have yet to follow suit. I put some background in and was going to put a blue wash over the picture before deciding it was so bad, adding more would be a waste of time. The flower in the middle is particularly unappealing.

I then had a little play with trying some leaf shapes around the edges then had one more go at the flower on its own on a separate piece of paper. Nothing seemed to go right today so I knocked painting on the head and cut the grass instead!

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learning-to-paint-bad-day-at-the-office-jsjjmEwFrgbCdzJpgeDq.zip (1.74 MB)

I painted an apple. It floated in the middle of nowhere. The following day I went back and added some shadow and a surface for the apple to sit on. The apple has landed. This is the first time I've gone back to a sketch to improve and add to it. Having let stage one dry it made working on stage two much easier as the colours weren't running into each other so much.

Here's a little sketch of crocuses I painted from memory today. It's a practice of some of the techniques I learned at Leapday.The perspective is wonky and I think some of the leaves have some interesting patterns in them.

The dominant colour is Windsor Violet and I tried to get different shades by using different amounts of paint and water. Getting the mix right felt very hit and miss, this wet on wet technique is tricky.

Around a dozen friends gathered in London yesterday to take advantage of Leapday. We were hosted by the very fabulous Coopers Natural Foods. Amongst other things we practiced drawing and coaching, and we got some fantastic water colour tips from Vandy Massey.

The image below shows one of the busy shelves at Coopers. It also shows two pencil drawings I made of a pencil. The one at the top left was before being coached, the one shown bottom right was the after result. In this image you can also see two examples of me playing with wet paint on a wet and dry background. I had not tried painting wet on wet before yesterday and the results interested me. The final part of the image is a grape, painted using the wet on wet technique.

I really enjoyed our Leapday session and I hope I don't have to wait another four years to experience such a useful fun day again.