A new start

 Yesterday we finished our maintenance tasks for this trip - just in time before the rain sets in for the next week. This meant I have been able to start s few more watercolours (see above); based on the photos taken over the last couple of weeks (see four chosen and printed out below).

A few preparatory sketches follow.

I'm not sure how much progress I will make on these; but given the rainy weather forecast I might get a couple of painting sessions.

More watercolour inspiration

 

On our trip to the west (Tongue, Talmine,  Portvasgo etc)I was able to take quite a few photos of ruinous buildings that may become watercolours.

Each ruin holds so much history; but as a visitor driving by we have so little insight or understand. Still it is good to take the photos before the buildings totally decay. 

I hope to print off a few of these photos and start a watercolour or two while we are over here.

A mixed bag of images

 We took a drive to Tongue and beyond; and as part of the trip visited Eddie's Garden after a light shower of rain - of course there were beautiful droplets encrusted blossoms - above and below.

The lambing is coming to an end in the village so why not share a bit of cuteness from a walk on Monday.

Looking to the mountains from the Kyle of Tongue causeway through a boat tie up ring.

So much beauty in the Highlands

Four finished

 

A you will see in the above and following photo I have finished four wee watercolours. They still need the critical eye of Megan run over them; and maybe a touch up with my Daniel Smith watercolours. 

A few miscellaneous-process photos follow.

Good to add these four to my contribution too the planned Pop up Art Show in Armadale Hall later this year!!!

Colour- just not watercolour

 

There has not been much time for art work as Fiona and I continue our cottage maintenance work - planting out 100+ Crocosimia Lucifer (bright red) bulbs, weeding and painting 4 alcoves - 2 up and 2 downstairs.

We did make time to go to an industrial supply shop to get two new chimney pots for the cottage; and whilst over that way stoped off for lunch in Halkirk with Graham. 

Across the road from the Halkirk Ulbster Arms Hotel was the most amazing display of tulip colour. If you scroll through the post you will see what I mean about colour and form.

I was interested in the furry edged tulips - white and yellow - I had never seen these before.

So while I did not get time to apply colour to paper - nature offered so much colourful beauty for us to enjoy.

Slow progress

  

Much of our time when we are at the cottage is currently given over to cottage maintenance and garden work. We have been given many many red monbrecias to add to our planting of several hundred orange monbrecias - it will look gorgeous in August-September; but it will take quite a few hours to plant the reds. 

That is a very long way of saying there is not a lot of time for watercolours - but I did get a couple of hours to progress the two I had started and start two new pieces as you can see from the opening photo.

I'm not as happy with these works because I did not bring my Daniel Smith watercolours which I think are deeper in colour - I need to remember to bring my colours with me next time.

A few progress-process photos follow.

With a bit of luck I might get these finished before we head back to our cottage in Maleny.

Inspiration for future watercolours

 

Today we took Fiona's dad for a drive down a few local side roads - something he said he wanted to do on this trip. This of course provided me with the opportunity to photograph some of the ruinous buildings and doors and windows that might become the subjects for future watercolours.

My understanding is that the building in the opening photo was a very successful local store in it's day - a fact I will need to check out.

I hope you enjoy the images in the blog post.

I will need to record the locality of each of the ruins as I'm a bit prone to forgetting that by the time I get around to doing paintings of the ruins. That makes it hard when it comes to naming the works.