Last night was punctuated with a lengthy message exchange with my panicking daughter in the small hours (she struggles with anxiety) and I couldn’t really get back to sleep properly in spite of my best efforts. So although I had a productive day planned, I decided a little self-care was in order as these days I can’t really roll with a broken night and carry on normally how I once could. There’s always tomorrow for admin…
I find the purchase of a new sketchbook and its clean smooth surface really incentivises me to finish my old one, otherwise I find myself lingering over the somewhat tatty and rumpled end pages; using wet media means the pages never dry fully flat so the sketchbook takes on a sort of ridge-and-furrow character which can be a bit uninviting to use. That said, I love love love a well-used sketchbook and really enjoy looking at back at my library of Leuchtturms.
I wanted to paint something comforting and enjoyable, so chose a fish from my Water Life of Britain field guide. I had some red and green on my palette already, so chose a Rudd. It was fun to do, and I was pleased with how it turned out. I used the leftover paint to make a linear pattern on the facing page. Working at Charleston, rural outpost of the Bloomsbury group, always inspires me to make patterns and I love the hand drawn, measure-by-eye designs that Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant used on their furniture and book cover designs.
