September seems to have flown by so it is really good to pause and review what I did during the month.

Teacups

I’m so happy to finally finish my big project of sketching through my entire teacup collection – including a few cracked/broken ones. I started it in Jan 2019 and 54 teacups later the project was done. It took me longer to complete than I expected and my collection grew a little during the last 12 months!

Of course I’m still going to be sketching teacups on a regular basis, but at least now I can sketch any cup I like.

Here are the last few articles from this project which I published during September:

Teacup 44: The first and the last of the Royal Albert 100 years set

Teacups 45-53: Finishing off my collection (almost!)

Teacup 54: My most precious cup

My Teacup Collection in full

Working on a new course

The other big thing which happened this month was the announcement that I’m starting a new course – Sketchbook Design. This is a topic which I get asked about all the time so I’m really excited to finally be able to put this course together.

Find out more here

Everyday sketching

I’ve continued to sketch regularly but this month I wanted to include more everyday objects in my pages. (This was my art goal for the month!)

I did manage to do that, but I still want to work on it more as I’m not putting as much time into these object sketches as I would like.

You can see some of these object sketches (as well as some page layout experiments) in these articles:

Designing random sketchbook pages

Recent sketches: Bits and pieces

Sketching Outings

Thanks to the Lesson 5 assignment in my Watercolour On Location course I made the effort to go out on two sketching adventures. The first was into the city (the downtown) to visit the Botanic Gardens and The Rocks on a Saturday morning. It was so strange to see The Rocks area so quiet and devoid of tourists but it did me so good to get out sketching. See more here.

The next week I had a wonderful morning on Cockatoo Island  – one of my favourite sketching spots in Sydney.

I think I will have to schedule more of these sketching outings on a regular basis.

Other Sketching

Nearly all of my sketching at the moment is from observation – either objects at home or out on location – but I have done a few sketches from photos:

Friday night baroque in a new sketchbook

SketchChat Session: Dunnottar Castle with progress photos

Finally

Something which I haven’t announced formally here on the blog…

I’m doing another Group Run-through of Foundations starting on Wednesday 07 October – next week! I’ll be hosting six livestream Q&A sessions during the next three months. Doing livestreams has been a real highlight of the recent Group Run-through for Watercolour On Location, so I’m keen to keep offering them as a bonus every time we go through a course together. 

It goes without saying I’m really excited to be going through Foundations again  especially as I love seeing people have so many lightbulb moments as we work through the lessons together.  Find out more here.

All in all, it’s been another good sketching month. There is no doubt that the Watercolour On Location course has motivated me to sketch more in my local area and I hope that I’ll keep doing that but  I’ll have to find some new ‘summer spots’ where I can sit.

I have some special sketching times planned for October… but I’ll share more about that in my next monthly newsletter due out next Tuesday.

Lastly…. I hope you are happy with the amount of sketching that you have done this month. I know that some people are facing restrictions again, so most of all I hope that you keep safe!