Today I made this quick pen and watercolour sketch of an orchid; it was dark and snowy outside so I decide to reflect that in the dark background which I also hoped would make the white flowers ‘pop’!
White Orchid Sketch
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Tag Archives: pen and watercolour
Illustration Exhibition at the Presentation of the Play ‘Té Verde’
On a rainy January afternoon my friend Marcel Snyders presented his play ‘Té Verde‘ (Green Tea in English) to an enthusiastic audience in the castle headquarters of Arte Vejer.
I designed the front cover for Té Verde back in October 2017 (you can read about the process here) so Marcel invited me to exhibit some of my art work during the event.
That’s Marcel (below) being interviewed by Paco Ariza Varo from Radio Vejer before Marcel interviewed me….
I decided to keep the exhibition small and simple so I showed a selection of my sketchbooks with my painting materials (to demonstrate the process of illustration) alongside the finished illustrations for:
- CDs – Jauja and Somos Más by Mr Groovy and the Blue Heads, La Musa Difusa by Merche Corisco, Lukumi by Trio Lukumi
- books – The Black Dawg by Louis McIntosh and me, The Three Witches by Jackie Cornwall
- Annie B’s Spanish Kitchen Christmas cards from 2015 and 2017.
I also displayed some of my fabric designs (my current favourite form of illustration!) and the dresses I made from them, as well as a selection of postcards and a computer slideshow of other artworks.
The presentation was highly entertaining, Marcel served green tea (té verde) and cakes as people arrived, two actresses from Marcel’s theatre group read the first act of the play, the flamenco musician Abraham Sevilla Serrano improvised a song dedictated to Marcel and the play (right)…
…then Marcel broke out the cava and presented me with my copy of the book
The Spanish version of the play Té Verde is now available to buy on the publisher’s website.
It’s a highly entertaining read…Good luck Marcel!
Tapas Time
There’ve been two public holidays in Spain this week; Wednesday the 6th and Friday 8th December to mark the Spanish constitution and the immaculate conception(!) respectively.
So to celebrate, Vejer went into ‘Pueblo Abierto’ (Open Village) mode, flinging back the doors of her monuments and putting on a Ruta de Tapas (tapas route).
During the Ruta de Tapas 12 restaurants put up their best little dishes for sale at 3€ (including a drink) and hundreds of people try to taste them all within the 8 hour over 2 days time frame. There’s a tapas route map which you need to get stamped in every establishment you eat at – if you get the full set of stamps you can vote for your favourite dish and enter a competition to win a computer. Tasty and hectic, start early!
The Vejer Sketchers arranged a meeting on Saturday so I popped into town with the intention of sketching (and eating) food in tapas form.
First stop the market (below)…not strictly part of the official tapas route but hey ho, the only place open when I started sketching. I didn’t eat this one, the roe was pretty but not gastronomically appealing so I gave it back unsullied to the fish counter lady once the sketch was finished.
Next stop, La Posta for some yummy spinach and ricotta pasta in a red onion sauce (below)
Then on to the 4 Estaciones (4 Seasons) for some delicious beef with Japanese flavours in a crunchy filo pocket (below)
Confession time: I ran out of steam and didn’t draw the last dish I ate…the establishment was struggling under the weight of the hoard by then so it took a long time to procure said tapas, which although delicious was not pretty!
Gurgle Jug
A friend of mine recently bought himself a present – a fish shaped gurgle or glug glug or gluggle jug…so called because it makes an entertaining noise when liquid is poured out of it.
Wade first made these gurgle jugs in the 1870s and they’ve been popular ever since…how’s that for a design classic!
I loved the jug and saw its sweeping lines and surface detail as a fine drawing challenge, my friend’s partner took against it immediately he saw it.
Can’t please all the people…!
Anthurium
I drew this beautiful anthurium while I was staying with friends in London this month.
I love the contrast between the red of the flowers and the green of the leaves and the elegant sweep of the stems.
I started with a pencil outline which I went over in waterproof ink (below) before adding the watercolour layers.
Tomatoes
I made this quick pen and watercolour sketch of cherry tomatoes on the vine as they were growing in my mum’s greenhouse.
As always…they were so sweet and delicious!
Bar Día – A Love Story
I was asked by José to make this pen and watercolour drawing as a wedding present for Blaise and Letitia, to celebrate their first ever meeting.
José wrote this poem to go with the drawing
Se dice que fue como un relámpago,
en cosa de un segundo,
segundo y medio a lo sumo,
un estallido de rosas cayendo de su pecho
al albur de unos ojos,
un traqueteo de piernas,
el suspiro de un miedo
y un miedo vencido con solo una palabra.
Se dice que alguien se enamoró aquel día
como tantas otras veces otras gentes
pero yo que he visto conozco esta historia
puedo dejarla escrita en estos versos
puedo decir seguro
que mereció la pena.
Which translates as
It is said that it was like a lightning bolt,
a matter of a second,
a second and a half at most,
an explosion of roses falling from his chest
to the fate of eyes,
a quiver of legs,
the sigh of fear
a matter of a second,
a second and a half at most,
an explosion of roses falling from his chest
to the fate of eyes,
a quiver of legs,
the sigh of fear
and fear overcome with only one word.
It is said that someone fell in love that day
like so many other people at other times
but I’ve seen, I know this story
I can leave it written in these verses
I can say for sure
that it was worth it.
Obviously it was impractical for me to travel to Mallorca to draw the bar so I worked from a photo that José found on the internet, rendering the outline first in pencil then in pen (above left and right) before applying the watercolour (top).
Tap
I had a lovely outing to Lassco salvage yard in Bermondsey the other day; not only do they have many interesting and beautiful objects which have been rescued from old buildings but there’s a splendid café there too.
I was particularly taken by the tap collection and immortalised this example over a nice pot of green tea.
My companion made a beautiful pencil drawing of another tap, both our drawings along with our models are shown below.
English Rose
This gorgeous specimen from my mum and dad’s garden smells as good as it looks!
Chumbera!
I’m delighted to have finally found a chumbera (prickly pear) with some lush new growth; the once ubiquitous and beautiful cactus is suffering an infestation of insects and slowly dying out here in Andalusia.
Moi from the gorgeous Ecléctica Deco shop in Vejer suggested that I sketch a chumbera a good while ago; he told me he’d seen a good one in La Breña national park so I set off for a hike on a really hot day search of it…needle in a haystack situation ensued. His next sighting was luckily closer to home and much easier to find.
I missed it in flower but hey-ho…the heart shaped leaf was a bonus…promise it was actually like that!