Me, not the weather, a sleepless night, an early start and a busy day. All conspired to leave me wrung out. Even though I was stuck on my backside for a lot of the day.
I took the girls round the Cholsey bigger field, now that the gates are unlocked and it is a cattle free zone. I avoided the ponds because they are close to houses and it was early in the morning. I did not want to be summoning the dogs in full voice, if it became necessary.
The walk round the field, and a bit further, was pleasant enough. No time to go to Pangbourne and the same consideration applied – not calling dogs near slumbering boat dwellers. And the dogs have a habit of going up to the boats and introducing themselves to the invisible occupants, which wasn’t a great idea at this early hour.
The sun had not been up long and a mist lined the low lying areas close to the river. It was quite pretty.
The old mental asylum – now homes and flats. Full of sleeping people.
The dogs did all they should and returned home somewhat emptier than when they left.
I faffed around and gathered together, lunch, water, flowers and an apron and added them to my paints and brushes before I set off for Ipsden and the wonderful Denny Webb. She is a very good artist and a very good teacher.
I really enjoyed the day. I learnt about triads which was all new to me. You mix the three primary colours and create a variety of new colours from using the mixture in different proportions and adding to it… eventually you can add white and / or black . The results were stunning.
It doesn’t take much to make me excited.
Triads.
Next… in summary … on our Orange grounds, once dry, we sketched imaginary flowers in outline in charcoal so we covered a lot of the canvas. Then we rotated the board through 90 degrees and used a white pastel and sketched more flowers over our charcoal efforts. Then we rotated the board again and sketched more flowers in a different coloured pastel. A bit like zentangles. Then we painted in 3 negative spaces in one mixed colour of our choice, and chose a flower to paint. And then 3 more negative spaces in a different colour. Then more flowers. On repeat.
The colours built up and I filled the negative spaces. Once we had the under painting done, we improved the flowers and chose and mixed a final colour for the background.
I enjoyed this activity … it was novel and creative. We could even add jugs in.
black and then white
and then green
filling negative spaces and flowers
Almost finished , out of time!
The dogs were pleased to see me when I returned home.
I prepped tomorrow’s pudding and then decided to get ahead of myself by peeling potatoes for the boureki for tomorrow. Only I didn’t. The potatoes were rotten. Thank you Lidl. Because of Sunday hours etc, I decided to return them to the store right away. Not exactly what I wanted to be doing on a Saturday evening after a long day out. I replaced them in Waitrose having told Lidl that I didn’t want any more of their rotten spuds. After they gave me my money back.
Then I peeled a load – some for supper and some for tomorrow. These potatoes are the same Maris Piper as Lidl’s poisonous lot , and were tasty band and not rotten.
Next. I fell asleep. Totally knackered.
Thought for the Day
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