My principal medium as you know is ink. However ink is an excitingly diverse tool. Coming in many presented forms, from enclosed to dip pens, brushes, aerosol, wet in wet; the diversity of this tool is almost endless.

The painting below is a mixture of dip Indian ink with brush/pen applied coloured ink, wet in wet; great fun, even if a tad tricky to control. Using ink on a wet surface or wetting an ink drawing (under control) open the medium up to producing amazing effects. More of those at another date.

Well to day has been rather pleasant; traveling into London with the aim of spending the day sketching. Working above Oxford street, behind Lewis's and around the BT tower. Several lovely people came up to me inquisitively to see what I was up to. Lots of encouragement, and three sketches later I meandered my way home. The sketch of the BT tower was a little iffy, maybe it was partly because my collapsible stool, collapsed whilst I was sitting on it, but he ones of All Souls Langan Place, (he above image) and another of where Carlisle street joins Soho square were not to bad.
All in all a good day.

One of my arty loves is sketching and traveling. As a result when on a journey my aim normally is to produce two sketches and a photograph of each place visited. This over the years has resulted in many thousands of sketches from all over the place.

I have made several painting trips to the Scottish highlands and islands. The image above is of the Sound of Mull, looking from the village on Iona, northeast towards Mull. It was drawn with a cheap black biro pen, quite early in the morning in  May, some years ago.

Adventures, learning. blogging; its all a nightmare! My internet has been down for about a week, hence no posting.

Todays post is of one of a group of trees in Hanger Woods in Surrey, a part of the North Downs way near Guildford. This afternoon we are of to some woods near Chobham to stroll, research, have a little exercise; so lets see what comes from this afternoons jaunt.

A busy week, two commissions finished, went to see the Tales of Hoffman the other night and seeing the Bolshoi (Sleeping Beauty) next week. Life is great.

Well I did say that this blog was a learning curve; when I posted a picture the other day I somehow managed to delete everything else, never mind. Lets try again.

I've just had a lovely weekend, a trip to the ballet, meal with friends, church and lots of painting. I feel refreshed and ready for tomorrow, when I will be leading two groups.

The drawing above is of a path by Hangar Lane, near Newlands Corner in Surrey.

At the moment I am allowing myself a brief rest from trees and looking at nature from three directions. So an object is selected and then painted three times from different angles, its good fun. Media being used is a mixture of water-colour and ink; this produces lovely bright images as can be seen below.

This week has been a little busy. I had an exhibition in Fordingbridge (New Forest) and that had to be taken down on Tuesday. It was at the Augustus John gallery/pub and received very favourable feed back and as a consequence have been invited me back again next November for a month; however more of that nearer the time.

Also had the feed back from Epsom Mental Health Week, where I work as their residential artist. They liked me and want me again next October and have also invited me to have an art  display during the conference, so not a bad week.

But not to long of the tree work.