Doddington Hall

Doddington Hall, ink and watercolour in large Moleskine sketchbook ©Anita Davies

I sketched this one back in January, it was a school day and I found myself arriving a little early to collect Harry so I parked up outside the church and made a quick study of the Hall.

I've sketched the hall before here:

http://artbyanita.blogspot.com/2008/03/splash-of-colour.html

A Coffee, Or Two, In Ely

I spent a lovely morning in Ely on the 15th, my first stop...A latte with vanilla powder topping in Starbucks.
In the first sketch (above) my Lamy Safari fountain pen filled with Noodler's red/black ink gave me some frustration, it kept missing and became a nightmare to use which is most unlike my Lamy. It wasn't until I'd taken the nib off, cleaned it and drank down my latte that I realised this interruption had occurred because I'd ran out of ink...The moral of this story is NEVER expect a caffeine addict to function intelligently before their morning fix!

I pushed on with a pigment liner for a while before moving on.

I headed over to the Cathedral for a bite to eat in their cafe where, on entry, I was stopped in my tracks by the stunningly beautiful watercolour entitled 'Under the octagon at Ely Cathedral' by Alexander Creswell. I gazed in awe for some time before finally grabbing a coffee and some lunch in the cafe.

The image below proves that it isn't such a good idea to try to sketch while balancing a well filled sandwich both women are suffering from short-leg-itis, a man made disease caused by my very own hand...and this was AFTER a good caffeine fix!

Location, Location

Both of these sketches were born of unusual situations.

The first, was created outside the school, waiting for Harry. Now I've sketched when I collect Harry from school many times before but usually from the comfort of the truck, grabbing a moment before I walk down to meet him. This time I took my sketchbook with me and created my sketch while I stood with all the other parents. I added the colour back at home from memory.
The second was sketched in the town library...nothing unusual about that but I did sketch the traffic lights while sitting in traffic waiting for them to change from red to green, which didn't take as long as I'd imagined it would.