Can we go back to the way we were before?

long shadows at dusk...

...falling over the green and pleasant land. Another English landscape, done in marker.

two bottles, three women, four cups

One of them for water, presumably.

Drawn rapidly during mealtime in Siena, Italy.

Girl and Ironing Board

Tarragon drew this on an iPad in about an hour.

I want another magazine

I'm in the UK right now, swanning around Surrey and London. This is a watercolour of some typical west Surrey terrain, enlivened by a Victorian pile called the Field House. It's also a view of the wee village of Compton, so beloved of Tarragon. Notice that the village is invisible. That's how it is.

cafe sketchbook

a blonde stranger

A very rapid marker drawing of a striking blonde stranger. You see a lot of faces in the crowd - like petals on a black bough, of course - and I like to pass the time on airplanes and in the metro constructing stories to  match the faces. Old portraits are fascinating for the same reason. They could be anyone, but which anyone?

Here we have some morose Teutonic heiress, who would have preferred not to be sketched.

The lonely terrace duo

The Withies Pub, in Compton

A view of the 16th century pub across a farmer's field. Done with sundry black markers, from much the same view as this painting by Tarragon.

messy sketch with pretty boy

Another page from the daily sketchbook, with an attractive blond boy roughly done overtop of an abandoned drawing.

The shimmering and luscious colours of Venice. This sort of thing is so typical of any Venetian view, but it has to be to said that Venice is pretty much unique in the world. A fun place to sit around and paint pictures. A fun place to die of cholera too, but there's not enough of that in this picture.

summer sketch

 

It was going well, but the model had places to go.

Another small landscape

this time sketched with a dip pen and india ink.

Drawn on the run, as usual, in the outskirts on Florence.

Tavernelle Val di Pesa

Tavernelle is a dainty town in, as the name implies, the valley of the river Pesa in central Tuscany. It's a few hours bike ride south of Florence, and about two minutes from Barbarino Val d'Elsa, which is in the next river valley over. I fell in with an elderly German tourist there, who was cycling the length of Italy. Excellent stamina for a septuagenarian.

The image is a tiny etching, about an inch tall, overlaid with tinted Japanese paper. It's based on the sketch I made from my bicycle. There are so many landscapes to sketch, sometimes its easier not to dismount.

Jake and Danielle

at a restaurant in Chinatown, in Toronto. It was a very quick sketch, since I was eating too.

Nick is sick

and probably didn't appreciate me sitting down next to his bed to sketch him. But he was too weak to do anything more than croak, so he was pretty much at my mercy.

It's a quick sketch from life, done with a china marker and watercolour.

He should have taken a left at the last right

and now he's lost, and is going to stand there for the next five minutes trying to figure it out, annoying his fellow pedestrians but suiting me.

The Red Chair

with Sarah this time instead of Steve. Part of the fun of life drawing is seeing such different models drape themselves over the same props.

It was done with markers, in about 20 minutes.

drinking tea outside a cafe in Mayfair

Forcalquier

A smallish community in Haute-Provence. I had been reading about the history of the early counts of Provence, in which the place figures large, and was looking forward to seeing the town. But sadly its medieval portions have been a victim of the succeeding centuries. All that remains of the famous castle is a (very ornate) 19th century chapel. The cathedral in this picture, at least, is a genuine 12th century edifice.

It was a lovely area for cycling, however.

fun in the sun

An etching made to commemorate a trip to Toronto Island. This is among the first etchings I ever made, back in 2002.