A word from Alice - studio stories from Alice Draws the Line

On Friday 23rd, Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th September 2022, I'll be at the Malvern Autumn Show.

While I am there I will be starting and working on a painting of some locally grown flowers. 

It will be an A3 piece, on watercolour paper, drawn in pen and ink and coloured with watercolour. 

I am doing this so people can see how I produce my work - and because I love seeing other artists at work when I'm visiting places!

I have decided to create this piece as a raffle prize, and so for the price of £1 you can be in with a chance of winning the painting. 

I have just had a really lovely weekend away at Logfire Holidays, Gwenoldy, near Mold in North Wales. 

Back in February Nicola who owns Logfire Holidays ran a giveaway competition on her Instagram account to win a stay in their new addition - a shepherd hut... and I won! I decided to go with my cousin as it had been ages since we had enjoyed a good catch up and we had a fab time. 

As regular readers will know, I seem to have an interest in experimenting with working at a larger scale.

Last week I took a big piece of paper out into the parkland near the studio and sketched using one of my homemade feather quills.

Hip Hip Hooray! bunting can be hung up for any celebration! Perfect for birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, weddings, parties, passing exams or driving tests, having a baby, mortgage approval, new home - anything!

The bunting is A6 in size and professionally printed on recycled card. It is hole punched and comes with thread ready for you to put together to suit the space you want to put it. It arrives in a labelled cardboard box, perfect for storage until the next celebration!

Look at all these pigeons I spotted in Barmouth yesterday. All on the railway bridge.

We hadn't parked for long enough for me to sketch them there and then, and so today I drew four from the photographs I took instead.

I started with black ink - mixing it with water for the initial layer. Later adding colour pencils, white dry pastel, silver ink and charcoal pencil as well as black and grey brush pens.

Scarecrow Sunday is an annual event in the village of Brampton Bryan where my studio is based. You can read all about it on the village website here.

Lots of people visit the village on that day and so we have decided to do our Summer Open Studios event on the same day too!

This year I joined Kath (The Walking Sketchbook) for a sketch adventure in Park Wood, at Hergest Croft Gardens. It's not too far from the studio which is great. 

It was lovely sat on a log drawing the bluebells with all the bright green beech leaves - and then a cuckoo called from the ridge - and continued to call as we drew and had lunch in the woods.