Illustrator
Joel and I returned to England again this spring, but this time we headed north. We toured Manchester, the Lake District, Yorkshire and finished in the Peak District. The weather somewhat co-operated, but we persisted anyway and managed to do six sketches. Is there anything more pleasant than sketching in an English garden and/or countryside? No, I don’t think so 🙂
Joel and I finally had the chance to go back to one of our favourite destinations: England! We spent two weeks there in total, the first 5 days in London and the next 10 days touring the New Forest then heading into Dorset, the Jurassic Coast and ending up in Lyme Regis. We were excited to get back into plein air sketching again (it’s always more fun when you’re on a trip).
We had an absolutely amazing time! We had two weeks of sun and beautiful spring weather. It did us a world of good 🙂
Prints are available to purchase in my Etsy shop.
The pandemic ruined our international travel plans for 2020, but Joel and I were determined to actually go somewhere because we needed a vacation really badly. So we decided to go on a road trip to les Cantons de L’est region in Québec (also known en anglais as the Eastern Townships). We had a lovely time: did some plein-air painting, ate a lot of great food, visited several breweries, went antiquing, went to Foresta Lumina (check it out, it’s so cool) and generally had a great time.
Joel and I spent two weeks in the Devon and Cornwall area of England recently. We had excellent weather for plein air sketching. Words can’t describe how inspiring I find the landscape in those parts. Lovely! That’s all I can say. I especially love Dartmoor National Park.
These sketches are available as prints in my Etsy shop.
This is a view of Dittisham, in the south of Devon. We took a tiny “ferry” boat to go over to Greenway from here (Agatha Christie’s summer home). I highly recommend the experience to everyone. It was a beautiful day, ideal for sketching. I was sitting in the churchyard while sketching this.
While in Devon, we stayed in Dartmoor National Park near Dunsford. We sketched this house, name the Olde Court Farm in Dunsford. The owners informed us the house is over 700 years old! That is madness to my Canadian ears. The owners were such lovely people, they served us mint tea (from her garden) and delicious cake while we were sketching! It does not get better than that.
Our AirBnB was across from the Teign River and these old stepping stones (the Old Stables on AirBnB, check it out). We decided to paint them one day. It was very relaxing to wake up to the sounds of running water. You could cross the stones to get to a network of walking paths on the other side.
This was sketched on a drizzly day in Lustleigh, in the Dartmoor Park. I like how much the cottage is leaning (not an exaggeration, I measured). I like what the rain did to the sky and pavement part of the sketch. There is a fantastic tea room next door, The Primrose Tea Room, where I had one of the best afternoon teas of my life.
This is a view from the harbour of Porthoustock in Cornwall. We started drawing this at around 7pm so it was pretty quiet there. Of all my sketches with boats in them, this is the only one that turned out. I’ve since given up drawing boats and put them in the same category as drawing cars, i.e. unpleasant things to draw.
Ah, the Tin Coast in Cornwall. Another great day for sketching. If you’ve watched Poldark like I have (and are mildly obsessed with it) then you will recognize these chimneys. They are all over the coast in this area of Cornwall. This was at the Levant Mine complex, an old tin mine ruin.
Joel and I have spent the last 3 weeks touring the Netherlands sketching, painting and sightseeing. There is a lot to see. The Dutch and Flemish Old Masters are probably some of my favourites in art history. We were fortunate to see famous paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer and van Gogh, as well as lesser known painters (but equally amazing, in my opinion) Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens, Jan Brueghel, Hans Holbein and originals by illustrators Rien Poortvliet (more on this in another post), Jan Voerman Jr. and Anton Pieck. Joel and I are saturated with art history and I can honestly report: it is a good thing.
The weather was fantastic for plein air sketching and so Joel and I did a fair bit of it on this trip. We even painted a straight-up landscape, which is something we normally don’t do. I was very distracted by ducks and geese while sketching on this trip. There are tons of them because of the canals everywhere and they would often come really close and quack at you!
Most of these sketches are available as prints in my shop.
