Not surprisingly I have ‘a few’ tea- related presents!!! I started with the intention of simply sketching the lovely teapot given to me by Cris from Spain who I met in Lisbon (sadly had VERY little time with her then… BTW Thanks again Cris…I still can’t get over this gift!!!) and then I realised other things in the picture are gifts too – the wonderful tea cosy from Cathy Gatland, the gold and pink tea cup (mysterious Xmas present!) , the tea and of course the paint set (a gift to myself!!) Just for the record I have more tea related presents than these!!!

A number of thoughts…
– I seem to be in the mood for no ink to my sketches…this is radical for in-love-with-my-lamy-Liz that I am!
– I am spent a lot more time painting this page than I normally do and … am well and truly in great risk of over doing it and achieving a murk!
– Using a 2B pencil… WOW! So out of character! (in recent years if I used a pencil it would be a wax pencil so no smudge… I hate smudge!!)
– I normally map out very quickly the outline/composition with my red pencil and then ‘properly’ sketch with ink…so I am finding it quite strange with a pencil only. I am carelessly doing the rough outlines and then realising that I should have been more careful as it is JUST the pencil this time.
– I am also in the mood for turning my book sideways…something I used to not want to do at all as it disrupts the flow when flicking through the book. Now I love the fact that I am forced to turn the page.
– Using pencil only for the sketch is causing my real grief when it comes to notes… It is wrong to use black ink. But I hate writing in pencil. This was a grey pitt pen…maybe I need to fill up a pen with Lexington Grey ink.

I am not sure that this makes sense… (as I said in my notes yesterday, I have realised that I write these primarily for myself as a record of the conversation I was having with myself at the time!)

See what a break from blogging does… I go into extreme rambling mood…so maybe there is a bit of an addiction there!!!