Sue Pownall: Artist & illustrator
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Loosestrife

30/5/2018

 
©Sue Pownall
Click images to enlarge.
PicturePage in progress

I've planted a wildflower patch in the garden, as I shared in my post here, but this yellow wildflower has selfseeded (thank you birds) in the grasses.

I believe it is a Loosestrife, which is the common name for the genus Lysimachia.


It has been a grey day, as the sun came out late evening, I did this little watercolour in my nature journal. I will add to the page when the flowers come out.

For this nature journal, I am using a Seawhite of Brighton A5 travel journal. This image was created with Sennelier watercolours.


Picture
The finished page... for now.

What have you drawn or painted recently? Why not tell me in a comment?

A Cabbage White & Weevils

30/4/2018

 
The next day, it was sunny and warm, so I caught the cabbage white butterfly, which had spent the night in my kitchen, and released it onto the forget-me-nots in my front garden. In my new nature journal, I recorded this in watercolour and coloured pencils.
Picture
©Sue Pownall
Today, I was out in the rain to biologically treat my containers against vine weevils, so I put it in my nature journal.
Picture
Do you nature journal? Leave a link in a comment and I'll check it out.

Nature Journal - a new diversion

24/4/2018

 
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For Earthday2018, an urbansketcher friend posted an invitation, a nature challenge  #sowinghopefornature, which included starting a nature journal. (Read the post here). I've been having a muse-free year and think this is the incentive I need  - I'm even blogging again.

First, I got out a new Seawhite of Brighton A5 Artists Travel Journal Sketchbook and attacked it with a stencil that was left over from a workshop, thereby commiting myself to the task.

Then, my furry assistant and I headed into the garden - it was a glorious sunny day -
and started my first spread and, as last year, I celebrated Earthday with a watercolour. On 8th April, I sowed a corner of my garden with wildflower seeds, cornfield annuals, plus a plug of Digitalis and one of Knautia Arvensis. They were last year's seeds, but they are starting to grow 🌱 In front, is a willow fence is to stop my lovely assistant digging them up. Below are photos of this first spread.

Picture
With text added to the spread. (Click to see the image larger)
I had several ideas for a second spread, yay I have a muse, but when driving to visit my mum there was a hitchhiker, a cabbage white butterfly, on my dashboard and then windscreen. (I pulled over, parking, and turning the engine off three times to take photos and to try to let it out). Therefore, my second spread had to be of the hitchhiker.

I don't like handlettering, so am going through a trial and error period whilst I find a style that's both fast and neat. Here's the hitchhiker...
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and a bad photo of the spread.
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Today, I managed to get the butterfly out of my car, fed it a little sugar water, and it is currently on my begonia in the kitchen as it's too cold to put it outside.

Unfortunately, due to my teaching commitments, I didn't have the time to add anything to the journal, I will do soon, but am not putting any pressure on myself to do X per day, week, or month. Please check back here soon.

Winter

4/6/2016

 
Picture
Winter. Ink & watercolour 28x20cm ©Sue Pownall 2016
I finished this piece a little while ago. Hope you like it.

Jo dibuixo i tu?

23/4/2016

 
Picture
Plaça dels Àngels.
PictureRafa serves. ©Sue Pownall 2016
I have just spent the last few days in Barcelona.  On Wednesday, I flew over having left my assistant to stay with her dogsitter. After checking into my hotel, I headed straight to MACBA and spent and hour on the above sketch.

After the rain stopped, I spent Thursday at the Barcelona Open BancSabadell – Trofeo Conde de Godo. I saw Rafa win amongst other matches, but didn't sketch anything.  

Friday morning, I headed out for breakfast and had to paint the girl at a nearby table. (below) I went straight in with paint as I didn't know how long she would be there. I had just snapped her surreptitiously, should have moved the menu, when she left.

Picture
From there, I visited the Fundació Antoni Tàpies and saw some interesting artwork and prints before heading to Passeig de Gracia. Being the day before Sant Jordi (Saint Georges), who is the patron saint of Catalonia, Gaudi's Casa Batlló had been covered in roses. It looked beautiful and still being early there were not too many people, so I sat on the street corner to sketch it.
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Gaudi's Casa Battló covered in roses.
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In the afternoon, I went to see some more art at the CaixaForum, which had an exhibition Impressionists and Moderns: Masterworks from The Phillips Collection.

Then went for a walk up to Barcelona's botanical garden. I sat and did a small watercolour, which I really enjoyed painting, surrounded by vegetation, bird song (including green parrots), and little else.

Afterwards, I had a wander around took lots of photos of the beautiful plants and flowers.


Picture
A glade in Jardí Botànic de Barcelona.
Yesterday was my last day and I spent it catching up with some friends. I still managed an incomplete sketch whilst waiting to meet a close friend for brunch. I wanted to capture some of the San Jordi celebrations, as I did last year (Sant Jordi 2015) but tables and more were still being set up, so started above them... and ran out of time.
Picture
Picture
Finally, a photo of Saint Georges dragon near Barcelona university.

*Jo dibuixo i tu? is Catalán for I draw, do you?

Quick trip to Italy

6/12/2015

 
Last week, I had to pop over to Italy to do some banking and negotiate with builders. As always, my sketchbook was in my handbag and here are a few of the sketches I did.

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Springtime in southern Italy

19/4/2015

 
Picture
In situ painting of Torre Talao, an old military instalation, Scalea.
This week, I had to pop over to Italy to sort out some banking and apartment issues. Whilst there, I was able to take advantage of the spring weather to do a couple of watercolour sketches.
Picture
Spring in Pollino National Park from the kitchen.
I'm loving my first full spring in years. Is it spring where you are? Are you out sketching too?

Print workshop induction

1/3/2015

 
Picture
I am now a member of the print workshop at Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester.  Consequently, on Thursday I had my induction to use the workshop unsupervised in the future. Whilst there I took the opportunity to have a 2nd attempt at etching. I used one of my new etching needles, which is quite heavy and a dream to draw with into the hard ground. I redid the oak leaves I'd attempted to etch on my workshop, you can see those results here.

Learning points:
  1. I need to clean the ink off the plates more, as you can see from the print above there is a lot of ink on the background.
  2. I need to pay more attention to the composition. Despite it being an interesting subject (well I think so), as this print doesn't work due to the shape the leaves create... I could use a clean hard ground to work more into this plate, but I'm not sure that will improve a badly thought out compostion.

What printmaking lessons have you learnt?

Lunar New Year - Chinese year of the ram

19/2/2015

 
Picture
To celebrate the start of the Chinese year of the Ram, here is a watercolour of a ram I photographed in New Zealand.
Picture

This year is refered to the year of the sheep or goat or ram as the BBC explains in this video Chinese New Year confusion over sheep and where I got this slide:

Digital drawings & a Dozy Dog.

15/2/2015

 
Picture
On Friday, I took Degas to the vets and sketched her as she fought the sedative she was given. She had xrays on her bad leg. There were no obvious fractures or other skeletal problem, but they are being sent for a second opinion. So the question remains, why is she still limping and not getting better?

Last weekend, I finally got a tab and having tried my first digital sketch
at the last Urban Sketchers Symposium (click here to see it)  downloaded a couple of apps. Thanks Omar Jaramillo for the app info. Check out his great watercolours here. These are my first digital doodles:
 
Picture"Uprooted" 28x17cm Watersoluble ink. Available to purchase.
Final things from this week:

Although I'm only three quarters of the way through the Monologue A5 sketchbook, which I started 27th December at the
Winter Wonderland sketchcrawl, I have abandoned it. The main reasons are the perferations and the wrinkling of the paper when water is applied. I tried 2 pages of a Canson but the ink smudges, so I will probably go back to my favourite Daler Ebony sketchbooks.

I started tutoring the mixed media course and will report on that at another time. The first course photo can be seen on my facebook page. and instagram @suepownallartist15


Lastly, I have a finished drawing, the first of the year, seen here. It's a bit of an experiment as I used watersoluble ink.

What have you done this week?



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    About me

    I am a nomadic artist travelling the world for inspiration. Here, I publish my sketchbook work alongside my new finished pieces.

    All posted artwork/images and text are ©Sue Pownall. All rights reserved.

    Email for permission if you want to use them using the contact form.

    It is ok to quote images or text on your non-commercial blog or website as long as you give a credit and link back. It is not okay to pin images.


    Copyright © 2009-2019
    Sue Pownall

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