I grabbed a handful of wood shavings from around some freshly cut trees as the smelled great. When I mixed those with the paint they just smelled of....paint!



I'm getting more comfortable with the acrylics now. I realise that you use the colours separately and don't try to mix/muddy them up. Used in spots/splatters against the white paper they look very good.

January art

I have been very busy and not blogging, but I have done a few arty bits and pieces recently. Here's a selection.

Boxing Day

Had to get out for a run in order to fit in more food later! Running across Ranmore the sun came through the dark clouds above Dorking and lit up one field and part of the vinyard at Denbies. The sun really beamned down through the cloud. I took a reference photo but of course this sport of thing is impossible to photograph!

Holly

I picked this on Bookham Commons. Its a very good year for berries, apparently because it has been so very wet. Yes, a surprise for those not from the UK, we do degrees of wetness and this Autumn has been extreme!

Just back from Ghana where I sketched the sun setting over the Fort at Elimina. It was a challenge because it was such a striking sight, but I caught something of it. I wish I had got my horizon a little straighter though!

A page from my journal about anniversaries. How things never stay the same, for example these tendrils of new growth over a log pile on Bookham Commons. I first drew these logs when they were freshly felled a year ago.

This is a picture I have made to use on a PowerPoint slide. It shows a mutant cocoa bush with three stems, and a common root and leaf system. It all has a meaning! I will use it in Ghana in a couple of weeks time.