Over the last few months I’ve been thinking about the layering of washes, tonal gradations and subtleties of colour change. In order to experiment I’ve been thinking of painting skin tones as this will show immediately when washes are too dense, abrupt or muddy.

I selected a model for her tonal contrasts, relatively simple composition and subtlety of skin tone.

This picture shows that I have a long way to go in achieving a creditable result. I’m attending a watercolour course on Thursday, which will last 12 weeks , and I am thinking that at the end of it I will post a similar picture and see if there has been any improvement!

I’ve entered 4 paintings into the Leatherhead Art Show, (22nd – 30th October)

Two are new paintings to this blog. Both are local scenes.

Leatherhead Bridge

Triptych of Mole Valley 

I’m excited entering these paintings and hope they go down well.

Molly chasing spiders on Norbury Park.

Back from walkies

Somewhere in there is a wet and tired Molly.

Molly just out from paddling

I couldn’t help laughing when Molly came out from paddling in the river. Her normally furry legs were abruptly reduced at exactly the depth of the river. It looked like she was wearing ‘plus-fours’ on all four legs.

I exhibited some paintings at the Heritage weekend and sold a painting! This is one of the other paintings on show, of the River Mole, exactly where Molly went paddling.

River Mole at Thorncroft

Molly likes to decimate the fuchsias and chase the bees.