Aquilegia Alpina

This was painted specially for a friend's birthday. While working on it I was overanxious about capturing the exquisite blue and delicacy of the petals and to my mind this is reflected in a slight woodenness in the flower. My favourite part is the buds against the dark background.

La Maison Jaune

Shadows cast on French houses are an obsession of mine and this might be the beginning of a series. There are a few technical slip-ups in this painting and it's not as loose as I would have liked, but overall I feel as if I'm making progress in handling the medium and developing my own style.

Tyres & Tiles

In my wanderings round the village one afternoon, I came upon this heap of 'junk' - discarded tyres propped up against a wall, ragged bits of doors and shutters, broken canal tiles neatly stacked in front, and the whole thing overgrown with ivy. The perfect outdoor still-life arrangement. Working from a photograph, my aim was to stay loose with both the initial pencil drawing and the paint.

May Day Muguets

I'm finding that the commitment I've made to post my artwork on this blog is really a great incentive to keep working. I can feel myself loosening up with each piece of work; not necessarily in my painting style, but in my attitude to making art. It's true what they say, that the way to shift a creative block is to just create something, anything, regularly, preferably every day.

My latest is another plant study: for May Day in France it's traditional to give lily-of-the-valley ('muguet' in French) for good luck. A friend brought us a beautiful specimen in a slim terracotta pot. What prompted me to draw it was the curving forms of the leaves. The final result is basically a watercolour with some pencil drawing on top to emphasise the plant's graceful lines.

Green Strawberry

It was an exciting moment for my daughter and me when we noticed that our two strawberry plants were starting to bear fruit. My eye was caught by their broad, fine-veined leaves shivering in the breeze and the dangling fruits bobbing about like the nodding heads of elves. Line & wash on Canson Montval Torchon watercolour paper.

Lilacs & Mailboxes

The inspiration for my first post was the profusion of lilacs growing all over the village this spring. The style is quite loose for me, which is what I was aiming for. I often like to draw into watercolour with black ink but in this case I was glad I resisted the temptation.