Seeking inspiration

 

Over the last week or so Fiona and I have been turning down some side roads to check out ruins that could become the inspiration for a few more watercolours. Some of the images that we captured are above and below. 

I have selected the images above because they have turned out ok for my brand of watercolours once I ran them through the app to remove the background as you can see below.

Over the last few days most of our energy and time has gone into doing the signage, set up an d launch of Fiona's gorgeous exhibition; but we will no doubt get back to spending some time on watercolours.

Visiting the stones

 

A few mornings ago we had a dry morning and an extremely low tide (see the photos below including Fiona looking out to sea); so Fiona and I took the opportunity to walk down to the 'stone beach' in the fishing cove. It gave us the chance to walk quite the way out and look back to the shore and the layers of stones heaped up there as you can see from the opening photo. The stones closest to the water seemed to be stained with tannin from the kelp or maybe peat runoff after rain?

Following are a couple of photos of the fishing hut and old boat. I love that these are still here after 6 years of visiting.

More photos of the stones and one of the steep rock sides of the cove.

It always brings joy to go down and visit the stones - hopefully fine weather will offer us the opportunity to do that a few more times whilst we are over this trip. 

Couple of wee watercolours at the cottage

 

Fiona and I have grabbed a couple of good blocks of time on the last couple of Thursdays to do watercolour on the kitchen table.

I have managed to do two watercolours - one of a ruin on Raasay Island - Orkney and one of a ruin at Crask near Bettyhill. The one in Crask is in the opening photo - I think it is near finished - I will have another look at it when I next get the watercolour gear out.

I have decided the Raasay piece is done - see below the left and much of the front wall had collapsed.

A couple of progress photos of the Crask ruin follow.

I think we are getting into the groove. On Saturday we went for a drive and took the opportunity to photograph some mores buildings.

Another bird feeding assemblage

 

Our neighbour's grandchild loves birds and loves feeding them - so what was I to do with the bits and pieces of timber out the back of the cottage? I know - I could make another bird feeding assemblage and gift it to our neighbour and grandchild - a win for the birds!!

As you can see from the opening photo it was finished today. It is similar to the one that sits out the front of our kitchen window - see above. 

This assemblage has three piers of small feeding areas - probably about 13-14 areas that food could be placed into. See progress photo below.

Fiona took the following photo as I was placing it in our front garden to see if it looked ok.

A few photos of the completed assemblage follow.

The assemblage was delivered today and our neighbour and grandchild have already put it to use.

Mainly rust

 

The buildings at the fishing cove have layers of history - in fact the buildings look like they have been tacked together over many years. The smaller green one in the centre appears to be the oldest; and the others have been added to the left and right - anchored by the centre ones.

There are so many fragments of rust on the buildings and equipment close by - some of those fragments follow.

The wee high rise bird feeder is weathering nicely; and paint continues to peel beautifully.

So many opportunities for rust and stuff appreciation.

Getting started

Fiona and I have decided that watercolour would be one of our creative activities whilst at the cottage as it does not require a lot of space; and we can do it at the same time on the kitchen table. As you can see from the photo above we have made a start. 

As part of the set up we were doing colour swatches to test some other colours we had at the cottage. I had brought Windsor Newton and the small box of Daniel Smith watercolours with us. Photo of testing below.

I decided to get started by painting a ruin from Rousay - sketch and progress below. Not yet finished - hope to complete the watercolour next session.

Grand that we have made a start - will see what unfolds over the next 8 weeks.