HOLIDAY PALM TREES

We've come back from 3 weeks on Tenerife, our favourite Canary island.  I took a sketchbook of course and filled it with nature drawings.  This is my favourite and there are plenty more on my blog I've just posted.  I have rediscovered my multicoloured pencils and really love the effects they give.

 

GINKO BILOBA TREE

On our recent visit to Dinan we came across this wonderful specimen of Ginko Biloba, apparently one of the first to be planted in Brittany which features in a census of important trees in the region.

 

BANANAS ON TENERIFE

Every spare bit of land in the cooler north and west of Tenerife is covered with banana plantations.

SILVER BIRCH BARK

My silver birches have beautiful bark and looking carefully I can see quite a few different colours, sketched here in Derwent drawing pencils and graphitint on crumpled watercolour paper.

My next step is to interpret the drawing in textile,  here using silk and organza appliqueed onto a cotton background and hand embroidered with yarns and threads.

SKETCHING TREES

I've just started a new project to draw the trees in my garden, starting with my silver birches.

One morning this week the sun was shining through the raindrops on the delicately hanging twigs in the front garden, making them look like fairy lights

.I crumpled some pastel paper and used Derwent drawing pencils to make the sketch then added the raindrops with a watersoluble pencil dipped in water.

The bark of these beautiful trees is full of unexpected colour and I really enjoyed drawing this using some Graphitint pencils that I had forgotten about for years.

AUTUMN GATHERINGS

 

A lovely autumnal walk with my daughter at Ramster garden yielded a collection of colourful leaves of which this is my favourite, drawn alongside some Camellia fruit.

MISTLETOE TREES

 

I've always been fascinated by trees overtaken by mistletoe plants, love the round shapes of the plants silhouetted against the sky on the host trees.  I drew this sketch just south of Angers in France near the confluence of the rivers Maine and Loire.

 

My new passion for embroidery led me to interpret the sketch as a stitchpic using collaged scraps on linen and assorted yarns.  I had such pleasure sitting in the afternoon sunshine during our holiday stitching this typical view.

AUTUMN COLOURS

 

Who can resist gathering those beautifully coloured leaves scattered on the ground at this time of year?

HOLIDAY POSTCARD

 

While I'm on holiday I love sketching and with my new found passion for hand embroidery I've started to stitch from my sketches.  This is the view across the river entrance at Benodet in south Brittany drawn in Triplus water soluble pens.

 

I use plain linen as a base then add layers of organza just like watercolour washes before stitching the details with various threads and yarns. 

 I like the idea of interpreting my sketches into other pieces of art, what do you think?

CAMPSITE COLOUR

We're back from a camping holiday in Brittany with a few nature sketches to share.  This was the view between the pitches at Benodet.  I'm always impressed with how well the French campsites arrange their places and plant a variety of trees for shade and interest.  This is drawn with a Micron 05 pen and museum watercolour pencils.

OYSTER SHELLS

Living by the coast of north Brittany is wonderful, especially as we can enjoy the local speciality, oysters.  The tides in this part of the country have a very large range which makes ostreiculture an important part of the life here.

We buy ours direct from the grower who has been awarded a gold medal at the Paris agricultural show and they are truly the most delicious things I've ever eaten.  I can never resist keeping a few shells to draw and paint later.

 

Campsite sketching in the Pyrenees

HUNGRY DUCKS

Back now from our holiday travels in the camping car with a handful of sketches to share.  This group of ducks came to see us each day in search of food.

PLANE TREE BARK

 

I love trees and I love fungus and finding the two together is a bonus.  During our trip to the Loire valley in September the weather was very windy and the plane trees were shedding their bark. I picked up a few scraps to draw and then I made this embroidery inspired by the patterns and beautiful colours.

ANCIENT YEW TREE

 

Just back from a trip to the Loire valley where I found this beautiful yew tree in the ruins of an old priory, Les Nobis, at Montreuil-Bellay.  Sketched in inktense pencils.

 

I thought you might like to see the embroidery inspired by the sketch. It was lovely to be able to go back to the tree as I worked to check on details.

OAK GALLS

 

Taking a walk down our lane and looking at the nature around me as usual, I spotted these oak galls on an oak tree in the hedgerow.  They look like bunches of currants on the undersides of the leaves and I just had to pick a twig to draw at home!

CROSSED CROZIERS

 

I love to see the new fern leaves as they unfurl in the spring and these two made a nice image for Easter weekend.

 

FABULOUS FUNGI

 

I have a few old tree stumps in my garden and noticed some wonderful growths appearing during the damp weather earlier this year.  I took some photos and drew them in my water soluble Triplus pens.

 

This one was on a Mimosa stump and quite different from the one on the Lime tree in the other sketch.  I'm pleased I took the photos when I did as the fungi have dried out now and started to fall off the stumps.

 

A BUNCH OF TULIPS

 

I love this time of year when the shops sell bunches of brightly coloured tulips to remind us that spring is just around the corner!

HELLEBORES

 

A few years ago my daughter gave one of her home grown hellebore plants to put in my garden here in France.  It has survived well and produced lots of babies that are beginning to flower too although they seem to take a couple of years to establish before they bloom.