Donegal awaits

I will be away from my blog from tomorrow. I'm off to Donegal and I promise that I won't do anything sensible while I'm away.

My map

Here is my contribution to Lindsay's moly, which was sent to David on Monday. You can see the great photograph David took of it here.
I love maps, especially old maps with all the funny graphic marks to describe different aspects of the landscape.
I usually draw a map like this to give people directions to our house.
Now I'm looking forward to seeing Casey's moly next!

Another soft pastel

Here is another soft pastel painting of the Donegal coastline. This is looking out from Dunfanaghy towards Horn Head.

Moleskine Exchange update

Well, now I can show the drawing I did in Brian's moley.

With my recent pastel paintings of Donegal, I thought that I should share my favourite part of the world with my fellow moley exchangers.

I was wary of using pastels in the moley as the pages don't have a lot of "tooth" although Brian's pastels were lovely and he managed with the lack of tooth. I thought that I would use my watercolour pencils, which work well on the moley pages. I was pleased that I got quite a watercolour effect, by using a damp brush over areas of my drawing.

Now I'm excitedly waiting for Lindsay's moley to drop through my letterbox.

Same subject, slightly different media

I love pencils (actually I'm a bit of a tart when it comes to pencils) and a few years ago I bought some Derwent Drawing pencils.

I thought they were lovely, soft creamy leads, easy to sharpen and a range of soft subtle colours. However, I didn't use them much, so I've tried them on Ingres paper using my Donegal photos for inspiration.

I have to say, after using soft pastels, these pencils are a bit of a disappointment, I'm afraid the colours just don't cut it with me . I can't even use pastels on top of them, they leave a waxy film on the paper.

That'll teach me to not be so promiscious in my pencil purchasing.

More fun!

These soft pastels are rather addictive.

I love the fact that you can keep "the big picture"(no pun intended) in view and not fiddle and footer about with details. I can't wait to get back to Donegal after working on these scenes. Not long now, I'm due to head up there in about seven weeks.

What fun!

Although watercolours are my all time favourite medium along with watercolour pencils. I have to say that I am thoroughly enjoying using soft pastels.

I like the way they force me to not fuss with details, but to get shapes and tones down straight away. I also like the way they can be blended or you can use broken colour to get the colours you want. I love the speed with which you can get a reasonably finished looking result.

These are my first three attempts.