My first sketch is from last week before the rain set in. I spent a lovely hour sitting in the 17th century garden belonging to a local villa. The 'corner' I sketched was of a garden seat with obelisks on either side and lemon trees behind. There is one of these garden seats on each corner of a crossroads in the typical layout of an old Italian garden. When I'm sketching somewhere like this I always imagine how it once was, with ladies in big dresses and children in knickerbockers.
This is a cafè front in Oxford. It was a freezing day and I was drawn to the bright spots of warm colours in the windows. In this sketch from my photograph, I did an under painting in black to see if I could get the darks really dark.
This month I am exploring what I can do with black, a colour that I rarely use.
The colour was painted in over the top and then more black using a coloured pencil. I still didn't get the darks desired, I think I'm still too hesitant about black. I need to try harder!