URBAN SKETCHING

URBAN SKETCHING

Sketching in Firenze

This is a photo from two years ago, April 2017, when I really discovered  Urban Sketching

- and got hooked!

There was a Sketching Maratona in Florence and I met many persons that have become my friends.

Ferrara, May 2019

Ferrara, 2019

Monza, May 2019

Since then  I have been drawing and sketching in their company, and alone, 

all around Florence, Rome,

Tuscany, Sardinia and Italy, Spain, Greece and Finland.

I still use mostly watercolors, but I have discovered, or returned to, other mediums as well.

Above are some of my latest watercolor sketches.

Hope to see you soon and sketch or paint together!

Watercolour studies - more pears!

If you have seen my earlier posts (here and here) you can see how my paintings developed, getting simplier!

I also changed the accent colours, choosing from the real ones I would see.

 I painted many more, but already sent them as postcards! 

At the end I ran out of the ready cut  paper - and used some Canson 200 gsm paper for the last pears( as the one above). It dried much faster, and doesn't have the structure of the Fabraiano Artistico coldpressed watercolour paper, but it's also interesting.

Now - it was time to stop!

But I will definitely repeat this painting session as an excercise soon. I also recommend it as a watercolour lesson to everybody: choose a  simple subject, paint small size and repeat several times!

It's very meditative and zen - and you learn a lot!

Watercolour studies - pears!

Some days ago I painted a series of pears from my garden (link here).

 I started with more naturalistic paintings, but slowly started to simplify. 

Below  you can get an idea of the process!

 More tomorrow!

Painting Endless Summer Nights...

Late evening: Summerhouse in the Archipelago

I'm reposting this painting I made from a photo a while ago. 

I kind of  feel nostalgic about 

Midsummer in the Finnish Archipelago and the long days and sunny nights...

Mixed Media Sketching Tuesday!

Last week I had a wonderful afternoon, drinking tea and sketching and painting with my friends!
I was supposed to stop by just for a while, and didn't bring much material with me, only and old book and some white gouache. While chatting and sipping on the tea, I started to partially cover  the book pages with the white paint... I really didn't have any idea of what I was going to do...

 Since I didn't have any watercolors with me I then used the different teas on the paper for some abstract designs for warming up, and finished with some watercolor pencils...

Now I was inspired enough to end up with some small and loose mixed media sketches of coffee and tea cups! I really enjoyed improvisating and sketching in good company, and I was quite happy with the result as well, even if these are no traditional watercolor paintings -  what do you think?!

Caffè espresso!

I have been really busy lately, and had a hard time to find time to paint. Luckily I always get so inspired by Lela's blog Paint and Draw Together -link  here ! This time I didn't paint the suggested picture, but was inspired to paint all my different cups of espresso coffee!

This was absolutely fun - first of all, usually I do much larger paintings, (except for my recent small landscapes) while these are small, like the real cups. This means they were very fast  to paint, which was important these days. 

As you see, on some of these sketches I added some details in carbon or pencil. 

I really think I'll work more with this subject, I have some cups with pattern as well...

This was the first sketch, and actually the one I like most, I think it's more fresh and expressive than the others. This happens often, since when I sketch I feel free, while when I start a 'real' painting I maybe try too hard!? Does this happen to you as well?

Small landscape paintings

The other day I had a walk in the afternoon, 

 and Oh, all of a sudden there was such a beautiful light! The hills of Chianti were lit by the late sun and turned out red - the contrast with the olive groves was just wonderful! Unfortunately I couldn't capture the beauty of the moment, but  I really wanted to paint it, so later I did it from my memory! 

I also framed some of my small landscapes with a passepartout because it really makes a difference, The works look much nicer when more finished up, don't you agree!?

Wintercolors from my sketchbook!

It's Tuesday again, and I'm opening my sketchbook to show a few different works. They are all fast sketches  - just for the joy of capturing what inspires me at the moment. This is a 'Il Duomo' a detail of the Dome of Florence. Pencil and watercolors. Very basic and fast sketching, but yet, easily recognizable...

This page - actually a double page, as so often in my sketchbooks - is a quite big sized (approx. 60 x 35 cm) mixed media painting featuring mainly watercolors - of cours  - but also oil pastels and chalk pastels.

I called it 'Winterberries' because of the frosty colors... And I enjoyed the painting process a lot!

Well, this was surprisingly fun! A leftover piece of wrapping paper inspired me. I glued it to the sides of my large sketchbook, and then I painted and copied the design freely, with no preliminary drawing 

in monochromatic watercolor (Payne's Grey).

From my sketchbook - cats!

Some time ago my dear friend Laura brought me a new watersoluble graffiti pen. So I sketched cats, and then I used water to soften up the drawings. A funny mix of sketching and watercolors!