Spoleto in Umbria

Last year we went on a family holiday to Europe and rented this amazing farmhouse in Spoleto Umbria. The views were truly stunning looking past the olive groves down the valley with the mountain range of the Monto Sibillini in the background.


I finally found the time and inspiration to paint it. In acrylics as I made a mess of the watercolour attempt. I'm giving this to my sister who shared our holiday to remind her of good times.

Negative spaces and upside down

This week Susie revived her galloping cowboy on horse picture to force us to draw negative spaces upside down. It was as arduous as the last time. But effective in getting a good likeness, especially for difficult subjects.



Then we had a choice of scenes to do the same. I have always found buildings difficult but done the same way it wasn't too bad. Naturally the picture I copied was much simplified already... Much easier. Rowena thinks that we will all have to be bats if painting plein air.

More still life

This week we attempted to increase the contrast and let the watercolour 'do its thing'. The iris actually was an excellent subject for this.


I also attempted these magnolias.


And finally a still life of onions and garlic to challenge us. They have lovely shapes. Much easier of course to paint brown and red onions than anything white.

Flowers again

Today we tackle flowers again but this time experimenting with wet on wet. Some lovely effects are possibly with the colours running into one another.


This ink drawing was super-imposed on a background of colours. I used acrylic ink as it does not run once dry and I can come into it with more watercolour.

Blue mountains

Our recent holiday at the Blue Mountains has inspired this painting of our bushwalk. It was morning and the light was beautiful- ideal time for a walk to appreciate the scenery.


Meantime I've started T2 watercolour with Susie. We did a still life and I introduced this wonderful colour called paynes grey. Naughty of me but its so gorgeous and dark!






For the gumnuts I used gouache white as it was impossible to get the texture otherwise.

Small painting

A vacation at the quiet end of the Blue Mountains inspired me to paint. We stayed at a huge luxurious house with views and Miss 11 fed the neighbour's horse with apples.


Bilpin and its surroundings are apple orchard country. We didn't pick any although we enjoyed an apple pie and ate lots of fresh apples.

Mangrove Cooks river

I've been working on this painting for a little while, on and off. It's a mangrove clump on the tidal Cooks River.


What I like is the reflections of the tree on the water, which is moving. Cooks River is a great spot for cycling and walks at high tide but not so great at low tide.