100-101 Painted Trees Exercise

I did these a few days ago and forgot about them. They were painted with some cheap brushes on cartridge paper following a tutorial on the internet. I wasn't going to post them at first because they aren't great but this blog is about charting my progress which means posting the good, the bad and the downright ugly!

99- The Gill Bridge

Sketched on location.

96-Rabbit Sketch

Sketched from a photo taken on one of my early morning walks near the Gill Bridge.

95-Tree Study

A section of an old tree near Newhouse Burn near Iveston

94- Tree Study

"A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation robes" - Alexander Pope.

93- Walkway near Allen's Ford

88-92 Watercolour Exercises

Some exercises in colour mixing from Alwyn Crawshaw's book, 'Watercolour Painting Course'

using Crimson Alizarin, Cadmium Yellow Pale and French Ultramarine. (Basically Red, Yellow and Blue)

87-Walk by Swan's revisited

Thought it would be interesting to take yesterday's water colour which turned out a bit flat and lifeless and try to add a more tone and detail using Photoshop.

86. A farm near Iveston

My intention was to try a pen and wash sketch but the weather turned nasty, and so did a rather large and mean looking bull!

84,85- Water Colour Sketches

Working with water-colours is pretty much a new experience for me, especially in trying to portray landscapes and foliage. Hopefully I will improve with practice! The top picture was painted from memory whilst the above was painted from a photograph, both were sketched previously. (77 & 72)

83- Edward Hunter

The first Apprentice candidate to be fired.

82- Boggerhole Revisited

A digital painting of a tree I sketched in pencil last week [no.70]. This time I painted the tree in Photoshop working from a photograph I had taken.

81- Delves Wood Pathway

80- The Apprentice 2011

Could have spent a bit longer on the detail but I wanted to get it uploaded in time for the start of the new series tonight. I hope it lives up to expectations!

79-Helen Louise Milligan

78- A pathway near the Gill Bridge

This time I used pencil to add some tone.

77-The Gill Bridge

This wasn't the best of efforts to start with but looks worse for adding water colour for tone. Water and pen don't mix too good, still.. all part of the learning process.

75&76- Leon Doyle

74- Alan Sugar sketch (Sketchbook Pro)

It doesn't seem like that long since the last series but I'm not complaining, I'm a big fan of the show and looking forward to watching the new series. I only managed to draw a few of the contestants from the last series so this time round I'm hoping to have a go at them all!

73- A tree by Stockerly Burn (Pen)

72-Woodland walk by Thomas Swan's (Pen)

My challenge for May of doing an outdoor sketch or painting every day has been revised to a more reasonable goal of doing a total of 31 pictures (equal to the days of the month). I am still aiming to get out as much as possible but getting to a location, finding an interesting subject and fitting this around other commitments has proved to be quite difficult.

71-Work in progress

I spent the first few days of last week working on this painting and since then I've been dragging my heals, so I'm posting it as a work in progress to hopefully spur me on to finish it.

70- The road to Boggerhole (Pencil)

I'm setting myself a challenge for the month of May of doing a sketch or painting a day in the open air or 'plein air' as they say in France! Ultimately the aim is as always to improve but I'm hoping that this will help me with things like perspective and composition, as well as giving me some much needed practice painting with water colours. It's probably not going to be pretty at first but hopefully by the end of the month I will be able to show a marked improvement.