Monday 15 November 2010

Tenerife Sketches

Home from a wonderful break, sun, mountains, family and good food and wine. What more could one ask for? Well, a bit of painting, in fact. Travel restrictions and baggage charges make it difficult to pack for a family holiday and painting break. This is definitely the time to ensure that a small watercolour box, well stocked and a couple of travel brushes get sneaked in to the case. Along with a couple of pencils and a sketch book it's possible to have a few rewarding hours making images and collecting small snippets of material to inform future work. There is also something relaxing about knowing that the contents of the sketchbook are not going to be the subject of critical viewing by others, they are a wonderful private record of impressions and places, that is unless you open them to the blogging community when you get home. The other thing is that there is no pressure to 'complete' a picture. Fragments and unfinished pieces are just as valuable as source material as a fully realised smaller picture.

The return home was the usual joy of chatting to the kids and the grandkids as well as being able to witness one of the most fulfilling 90 minutes of football.

Church Square, Los Gigantes - Watercolour sketch

Los Gigantes Cliffs from Apartment Window - Watercolour sketch

Church, Santiago del Tiede - Watercolour sketch

4 comments:

Caroline Simmill said...

Good to hear you enjoyed your break away Mick. I often find the holiday sketches are much nicer than any postcard you can buy from the place. You may want to think about giving these as wee gifts too. How did the art fair go has it been and gone?

Unknown said...

Caroline - Thanks for the suggestion about gifts. I'm not sure as I am just having my first attempt to put work up for sale and I'm finding it difficult, it's amazing how attached one can get to the paintings that you suffer over. That brings me on to the Fair, it takes place this weekend and I've got a list of finishing off jobs to keep me busy until then. I'll post a report after the event.

Peter Ward said...

Glad your safely back Mick. You must be chuffed with what happened at Chelski! I won't mention St James Park... I was glad that the multi millionaires got stuffed though!!I like to see ALL the North East clubs doing well.
Good luck with the fair. As you have been so busy with holidays and now the fair I have decided - with your approval? - to reschedule the next project to December and give this month a miss.

Unknown said...

Peter - Cheers. Approval granted, look forward to whatever comes at end of month.