Mountain Matters

Zugspitzem Garmisch

There is something quite breathtaking about being able to lie in bed and look out of the window at soaring mountain peaks. And in the evening, the patches of snow catch the evening light and glow with a peachy light. Quite stunning!

Door Matters

I was in bed early last night, and was intrigued by the light and shadows cast through the open bedroom door to the sitting room doorway. There is something so intriguing about partially open doors - not knowing what is on the other side. And then there is the metaphor of the open door, opening to new experiences and adventures. Looking forward to my next open door.

Preparation Matters

So we are preparing to head off on holiday this weekend - Sunday. Heading south to Garmisch Partenkirchen in Bavaria for a week. Packing up my pencils, pens, some watercolours and hoping to get some serious sketching in. Mind you looking at the weather forecast I think this might be wishful thinking. Rain, rain and more rain - and this is after positively months of only having the occasional dribble. How can that possibly be? Oh I know, it's Murphy's law!



I am going to take with me a couple of new books in case we never get to leave the hotel. And of course camera and lenses for those amazing panoramic views I hope to see of the Bavarian Alps.

Sunlight Matters

It's officially confirmed - not that I didn't know it all along - I don't like drawing trees. Which means I am going to have to draw a lot more of them to get over the hatred. Because I do rather like trees. In my defence, these aren't particularly interesting trees - their shapes aren't interesting and neither are their leaves.

The sun shines on the end wall of this block of flats opposite my kitchen window and the yellow wall lights up with the most beautiful glow in the evening sunlight. I may not have any view at all from any of my windows but there are moments in the day when it is quite nice to look out of the windows.

Head, foot , whole body matters

Played with more heads today - getting to grips with proportions. And played with a foot before doing some timed 5 mintue head sketches of him-indoors, who hates to pose for me (but as he has done nothing but complain about my not doing any art for months he could hardly say no). Sweetheart! Went on to do a half-hour sketch. Having played all day today at not going out to sketch in the beautiful spring weather, I do feel that I made up for it this evening.


One thing that I did do this afternoon was sort out my art materials and found that I owned about a dozen watercolour pencils (right had page) and rediscovered the Derwent Graphitint (left hand page) pencils that I bought years ago and have never used. Interesting to see the difference between them. The Graphititints have a very muted colour when dry that just explodes into colour when wet, whereas the watercolour pencils have good colour dry and wet. I must play with them a bit as I think these would be wonderful to take out on sketching trips - when I find the courage to venture out!

Head Matters

I am always blown away by those sketches that capture someone/something and show so much in a single outline. My inclination is always to go for too much detail - in everything I do. It drives me a little crazy sometimes that I cannot find the stop button. Most of the art I love has little to no detail - I love abstracts, Expressionism, Impressionism - all of which make suggestions and leave the brain to fill in the detail. So in an attempt to make my sketches look like sketches and not get hung up on detail I set myself down to do short sketches of heads (another weakness of mine). The problem was then to stop myself from going back and fiddling about with them once I had done them. I haven't got as far as a single line yet .................... I'm hoping that will come in time.

Foot Matters

Nothing like putting your feet up after a long day at the office!

Been thinking about feet a lot lately - particularly about feeling the sand between my toes, little, rippling waves washing over my feet. Nothing like dreaming of a holiday when you feet ache from being in high heels all day.

On another note - bought some pretty pink flat ballet shoes for my feet, toes wriggling in delight at the thought! Will have to sketch those too.

Diner Matters

Diner Delight

Lunch today at Johnny Rocket's Diner, classic diner with black and white tiled floors, red chairs at the counter, and reasonably good hamburgers. I am not a huge fan of fast food but just occasionally it's almost what the doctor ordered!

(My husband's comment - "why is the burger on the floor?")

Daily Matters

Casita at Finca Rotilla


Olive tree

mat·ter (mtr)
n.
1.
a. Something that occupies space and can be perceived by one or more senses; a physical body, a physical substance, or the universe as a whole.
b. Physics Something that has mass and exists as a solid, liquid, gas, or plasma.

This is my first post in this new blog for daily or maybe not so daily sketches. But sketches about and from my life.

I've been struggling with my creativity for a while. The fear had set in and with each day picking up a brush has become harder and harder. I've been reading lately about 365 projects for gratitude and having already tried a 365 photography project that defeated me, I wasn't so sure about committing myself to something that I had to do every day. But the more I thought about it the more I thought that I spend ridiculous amounts of time in front of the television and computer that I really could use more productively. I've also been looking at Danny Gregory's Every Day Matters - thank you Danny, for the kick start! - and joined his Facebook page as another way of committing to doing something creative.

So today is the first day of am-art-matters - things that matter to me.

Immediately I thought about buying books on how to journal, pens, sketchbooks etc all which would have meant putting off the day that I would start this and that would never do. So I dug out a sketchbook that I had started last year when I was visiting my mother in Spain. The first sketch was one that really hadn't thrilled me, an interior of her house, so rather than starting a new sketch today I have tarted up that one and will post that and the sketch of the olive tree as my first post.