Category: watercolour

30 drawings in 30 days – Last set

#21/30 – Parco archeologico Scolacium, Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

#22/30 – Pen & Wash exercise, from Cathy Johnson Art Tips  

#23/30 – Golfo di Squillace, Italy

#24/30 – Anthurium

#25/30 – Hosta

#26/30 – Torre Cavallara, Catanzaro Lido, Italy
#27/30 – Sedia di vimini, Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#28/30 – Athelstan Recreation Ground, Kingston upon Thames, UK

#29/30 – Summer Trees

#30/30 – Il porto, Catanzaro Lido, Italy

The last 10 drawings have been a completely different story. Say that the motivation begun to fade away, say that we came back home, say that I went back to work, say that the last 10% of a project takes 90% of the time to complete…I finished the last drawing this month! Shame, I know. I managed to do drawing #29 at the end of October, but really lost any motivation to do drawing #30 until the new year. But I finally did it and along with a new scanner I was able to put an end to this torture (this is what does to me any unfinished project!). Overall I’m glad I did it, even if it took more than 30 days. I will do something similar again, but maybe joining some group projects this time to keep things more interesting.
You can find the previous two sets of drawings here and here.

30 drawings in 30 days – Part 2

#11/30 – La Capanna – Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

#12/30 – Spiaggia – Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

#13-14-15/30 – Doodles

#16/30 – La Terrazza – Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#17/30 – Living Room – Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#18/30 – Hibiscus – Catanzaro Lido, Italy
#19/30 – Wet-on-wet excercise

#20/30 – Golfo di Squillace, afternoon mist – Catanzaro Lido, Italy

I was hoping to get a new scanner soon, after my old one broke down a long while ago. But since that hasn’t happen yet, I got my drawing scanned at work. Here is my second set of drawings which were done back in August. I loved the challenge of finding the time everyday to do a little sketch. I must confess we were on holiday back then visiting my parents, and it was not much of a time issue, more like getting the inspiration going…trying to fight the apathy that comes with doing (almost!) nothing all day and a 40degC average temperature! But I stuck to it and I’m glad I did.
These were mostly on the spot sketches, with the exception of #18 which was done from a photo I took in my granddad’s garden and #19 which was an example exercise from one of Cathy Johnsson mini classes. And the doodles of course are pure imagination…

30 drawings in 30 days – first 10 drawings

#1/30 – Municipio – Pescina, Italy
#2/30 – Various plants from the garden – Pescina, Italy

#3/30 – Pescina (old town), Italy

#4-5-6/30 – Various subjects – Catanzaro Lido, Italy

#7/30 – La Tonnina – Catanzaro Lido, Italy
#8/30 – Pineta – Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy
#9/30 – Strada per Pescina, Italy (from photo)

#10/30 – Colline sopra Roccelletta di Borgia, Italy

And the first 10 drawings are done, almost as planned! I have been using my Moleskine watercolour notebook (21 x 13cm) as I’m planning to complete all the sketchbooks I have lying around the house by the end of the year. I have used different page layouts, so far: portrait, landscape, landscape with 4 horizontal inserts and landscape with 3 vertical inserts.
The first batch contains different type of sketches, some of them were done on the spot, some others were done using photos I had taken with my phone. I managed to do one drawing a day, except for drawings number 4, 5 and 6 that were done on the same day…you can tell by the size of the drawings and the lack of details…..

Note: In the UK the hash # isn’t printed on the Apple Mac computer keyboard, so just press “alt”+3.

Back to the roots

It has been a while since I shared my thoughts on here. Although my head has been busy with ideas, projects and various topics I seemed to never find the right time to write about it. It’s the lazy part of me that prevailed over the past few months (two, three?? Has it been that long?). Maybe, or it’s just that all those things didn’t excite me enough to find the time to actually do them/write about them. So after two days of ups and downs, lots of reading and lots of talking to G, I figure out that sometimes you need to go back to what made you start in the first place. It all begun (or better said resurfaced) back in 2005, about a year after moving to London when I enrolled in an evening art class at the local education centre. My childhood memories resurfaced and I rediscovered that sensation of fulfilment that I had lost along the way. Back then it was just a way of relaxing the brain from my daily job, but it soon became a necessity, something I would miss if I wasn’t doing it. And after 7 years it’s still the same…when I’m not painting or drawing I’m thinking about it. So here it comes, a new challenge for the rest of the summer: 30 drawings in 30 days! There are plenty of groups around the blog world that are taking up similar challenges; I might join some of them, just in case my motivation runs low along the way. But I will be doing it just for me, to make sure I do find the time every day to escape into my personal space if only just for a few minutes. Depending on the time available, I’m aiming to post three batches of ten drawings, hopefully with some accompanying text. And all starts today!

Summer sketches – Part 2





Here is another batch of sketches done in Pescina (L’Aquila). It has been very hot during the past week, and was almost impossible to stay outside during the day because of the heat….got sunburnt one morning at 10am while sketching under the sun! Best time was in the evening around 8pm when the sun was setting behing the mountains, the colours were magnificent…not very well captured in the sketches above 🙁