meldrum art
We are currently sailing along the east coast of Sweden, taking it easy as we always do – which means I have time to do some watercolour sketching. Here is a sketch from when we visited Grisselholmen on the 3rd of July. More watercolours to follow! Grisselholmen 13 x 17.5 cm
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This week I am home and I tend to spend too much time in my studio. I therefore make sure I go for a walk or cycle each day. I always bring my sketch bag with me. The weather has been really amazing lately so I am doing a lot of light studies. Watercolour for me is about capturing the light, it’s amazing how hard it is to catch. I just practice and practice and hopefully one day I will master it.
The sketch “Södermalm” is 13 x 17.5 cm on 300g Saunders Waterford paper.
Click the thumbnail below for full sized image
The weather has been so good recently, I made sure I got away from the studio and explored the countryside close to home. The countryside usually means water and islands that are crowned with Scots pine. At least I seem to be always drawn to the sea, I feel best there by the waters edge or better still, sailing in the archipelago.
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View from Boda, 17.5 x 13 cm
I just love driving down to Nacka Strand, which is close to where I live. There I practice my clouds, my reflections and at the same time unwind enjoying the view.
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Cheers!
Yes, on Sunday I met more art friends. This time it was an unofficial Urban Sketchers meetup. We met at Humlegården in central Stockholm and enjoyed the sun soaked day.
I managed to do two sketches, one trying to capture the light in the trees and the other is of the statue of Linné, the famous Swedish botanist.
It was so nice to meet my friends. I know now it is really important to have social contact, I feel so much better for it. Luckily sketching is an outdoors activity and so it’s relatively safe to meet friends in this the year of Corona.
It was early Saturday morning, I broke the plastic sealing wrapper from around a William Turner book I had purchased – The ‘Skies’ Sketchbook by David Blayney Brown. Once I had studied it for a while I had this enormous urge to get outside and paint some clouds. Luckily the sky was very beautiful during the weekend, the soft pillow type cushions sailed past quickly which meant the scene in front of me changed completely every few minutes. I sat in my new camper van at Nacka Strand protected from the cool wind, I was inspired and I enjoyed every moment of it.
One of the schools I attend to sketch life drawing has started a class where one can paint portraits of a model live. There are 3 poses each evening and the length is 35 minutes which is perfect for my rather short attention span. I really want to improve when it comes to doing portraits so I’m really happy this class has started.
Here is a link to the class. (In Swedish) The watercolours are about A5 in size.
This was the last sketch from our month-long sailing trip to Finland and Åland. I finished the painting yesterday but I actually painted most of it at Fiskö, on the 25th of July. I really miss being out sailing, it’s not as much fun sitting here in my Studio.
I actually am going to make a break for it tomorrow morning! I am going to camp on an island that I have been wanting to sketch for years. I’ll tell you more about that in a later post.
I thought this might be interesting for a few. I mask my sketckbook page with tape when I create a border. I like it that way.
< Click the image to see full size