WEDNESDAY NIGHT:
I am so easily led astray by my art friends when it comes to colour… two of my dear friends Robyn and Vivien just happen to mention recently that they were playing with Winsor and Newton Opera Rose.

Just so happened to have a tube of Opera Rose in my paint collection (from years ago – when they had a promotion and competition on)

WOW! I really like what I am seeing in these mixes.

Getting a vibrant mixed orange is something that some of us have talked about before – this one is amazing! So are some of the other mixes.  I think someone is going to make a change in her palette.

I posted on facebook and almost immediately… Lightfastness of Opera rose is being questioned…

See here for details

This is nearly 5 years old in my sketchbook (so hasn’t seen much light) and looks fine to me!

BTW I went straight to this sketchbook… I knew exactly what year and what month I did this sketch (scary!)

I have decided to use my mixing page to do my own ligthfast test – so I will report on it in a few months time

Putting aside my new colour adventures,…

I have been wanting to get back into my Port Macq beach sketching mode back home….but I feel too flustered with all the things on my to do list (plus my studio/study was a disgrace) So  with a totally clear work surface (it is not an artist easel but a B0 drafting machine that I can adjust the height and angle) I sat down to slowly sketch an architectural subject using a combination of water-soluble graphite pencil, Watercolour paint and WC paints.

Ah! I enjoyed that very much….

I only drew the basic outline in water-soluble graphite initially, blocked out some areas in shadow with an ochre WC pencil and then paint, WC pencil, paint…and who knows… working up colour and texture together. Next time I am going to use better paper 300gsm (oh! that is a bold move for me!) Now that I have scanned it, I can see tweaks that I want to make…but this is where I stopped.

This was from a photo taken a few years ago – a bright summer’s day. Church in Manly

THURSDAY NIGHT:

I added a scanned version of the other nights sketch into my sketchbook and then did another quickie (a glorified thumbnail) to test out my new approach to architecture. It is important for me to test out new techniques at home as when I am on location I often do ‘reflex’ sketching…so I am in the process of retraining my reflexes!

Later in the evening …. I needed to play a little. So using my new teapot book (gifted to me by a best friend…I wonder why!) I had a little play with opera rose and my water colour pencils etc.