Wrest Park Craft and Design Show today. Have some nice chats with the demonstrators and learn a lot. Expecting to sketch perhaps a basketmaker or Saxon re-enactor, but end up drawing the gypsy caravan (because it keeps nice and still!) Struggling with the gusts of wind AGAIN, so I think I will do my sketching indoors tomorrow.
Celtic Harmony Camp Lughnasa Festival. I was so busy helping with the have-a-go archery I didn't get a chance to do much sketching. Also, it was unexpectedly cold! My fingers were too stiff to draw. I think I sketch better with a pen, anyway.
Heartwood Forest Festival. A superb event, and great to see it so well attended. Paul Atkin, the woodturner lets me try the pole lathe, so he then becomes my subject for the day.
Symondshyde woods again. Chester is now used to me stopping to gaze at a piece of paper, and takes himself off. He returns every so often to make sure I'm still there. It's been very gloomy, but the sun is just starting to break through. I'm sitting next to the big tree I painted previously. The air is damp and the paint takes a long time to dry. By the time I get home some of the effects have blurred. Another little lesson. GCSE results today - wondering how Rob will do.
The rains starts to come down heavily so we head back to the car. On the way I chat with a lovely lady with an Irish brogue who ends every comment with 'so it is'. This cheers me up, and when I get back in the car I notice a pretty Rosebay Willowherb just outside. Using mostly the same colours I had mixed previously, and my BETTER BRUSH. I'm pleased with the result, so I am!
Colney Heath. Another long walk with Chester, but it starts to rain. I try a warm up on some hogweed which has gone to seed. I notice I'm getting the hang of the limited palette in my little kit, but I'm still struggling with the silly little brush it came with.
Symondshyde Woods. While walking Chester I notice this huge tree is suddenly sunlit. I sit on a log and take a little longer (15 mins, perhaps) to paint it. I have remembered to bring a better brush, and get, I think, a better result this time. Chester can't understand why we've stopped! A couple out walking chat to me about how very quiet these woods always are. I agree.
Having finished my painting (of a lighthouse) I do a very quick sketch while Lyndall tries out her new paint set.
Back in Hatfield Park again, I'm waiting for friends outside the tea room. I do a warm up using what is next to me. The first attempt is overworked and heavy. The second attempt I like.
I just have a few moments to capture this chap before he joins the parade in the main showring.
Another day at the Country Show, and I move further afield. The sketches simply don't do these beautiful birds justice. So I look around for something that stays still for longer!
Later, I use my break to sit out front of the marquee to do a quick watercolour sketch of the interior (which happens to include Stephanie sitting carding behind her wheel). I struggle with the tiny brush supplied with the kit, which keeps falling apart. I lose most of my water fishing the brush out (much to the amusement of an onlooker!). Hence the paint is rather too dry, and a lesson has been learnt.
So I begin the diary at the Hatfield House Country Show. I am helping demonstrate with the Mid-Herts Guild of Spinners Weavers and Dyers. To 'warm up' I try a pencil sketch of a spinning wheel. I soon find out how very complicated it is to draw! I don't have much time, so I change to a black pen and quickly sketch Carolyn working on her table loom.
