More hours in the day please

Are you like me I wonder? As the days grow longer I get more energetic and want to fit so much more into every day.  As I write this the birds are singing, the sun is shining and it feels like all things are possible. It's 6 o'clock in the evening - only a few weeks ago, at the same time of day I'd already be curled up in my armchair in front of the TV feeling like the day was over. Now that the light is better for my old eyes I've resolved to do more drawing and painting. I did make a start on the Amaryllis as you can see but I've decided painting flowers that are mostly white is not easy!

Laura bought me some granulation fluid a while ago and I've been giving it a whirl but I'm not convinced it's doing anything different to plain old water. Maybe I'm not doing it right!

I've not been drawing much lately and it really shows. I tried a pencil study of a leaf - took quite a bit of time over it but it still looked rubbish. It's practise I need so tonight I've made sure all my pencils are sharpened and ready to go. Surprising how delaying tactics like sharpening pencils suddenly seems so attractive. Anything to put off the dreadful moment of actually making a start on a blank sketchbook page! People wouldn't believe it still makes me nervous even though I've been doing it forever. Once I get going it's fine it's just the starting that's the problem.

On the quilting front I've had Jamie at fingerprint print one of my gouache and Indian ink paintings onto cotton poplin. I need to keep this one a bit secret so I won't show the whole thing yet, just a sneaky detail.

I think you can see how faithfully the digital print process reproduces the texture of the watercolour paper. This is the printed fabric, not the original painting!!

Some of our Creative Sketchbook students have also been busy drawing and painting. Thanks go to Wendy for letting us show a couple of her pages here:

Love love love that pastel and resist technique!
 

And to Rosemary for these:

We all seem to have a floral theme going don't we? Such gorgeous foxgloves!

My word, these students keep us on our toes!!

Thank you for dropping by - I appreciate your company! Linda