Winter Sketching, Inside

I recently installed a new photo organizer on my computer, and when looking through the pictures from the last year, I realized I hadn't posted a number of interior drawings because I've been so focused on Mediterranean landscapes. So here's a catch-up post with some of those, appropriate, maybe, for the frigid days we're having here in Montreal that are keeping me mostly inside.

The watercolor and ink sketch, above, was an online gift for a friend who deserved a bouquet. The flowers were the last begonias from our terrace, and at right is my mother-in-law's porcelain salad bowl, with a pineapple pattern that's just about impossible to draw, so all you can do is suggest it.

I'm inordinately fond of the little ribbed-glass salt dish in the lower right of that pictures: it came from my grandfather, and I think it has a personality, as well as almost always being somewhere on our table. Here it is again in a drawing of a late fall bouquet, some dahlias I picked just before the first frost. That's my father-in-law's Egyptian camel-bone tambourine on a shelf in the right center back of the room.

Another late fall still life, below, with gourds that were a present from our friends S. and G.

Before going away this past fall, I did a number of sketches with ink and gouache on toned paper, while deciding which sketchbooks to take. Here are two of the same subject - one just in ink, done with a bent-nib fude pen, and the other with some added gouache and watercolor.

and a detail:

and here's the one with some color. I like the sketchbook page with all the scribbles and pen tests at the top.

Finally, here's a gouache still life done not at home, but at the studio, of objects sitting on my desk there. Driftwood, stones, shells, bones, old glass, two jugs that used to hold my mother's paintbrushes...

and another detail:

Which of these resonate the most with you?

Comments

[Liz Nestler]

I like the ones with bright colors -- the flowers and the last one. As you say, it brightens up a winter day.

[Marie]

So talented! I love all!

[Jean]

I love them all too - their satisfying detail and vibrant tenderness x

[Natalie]

The top two images resonate most with me, Beth. Spontaneity and order combined, not too much and not too little. Staying home and drawing: no better way to warm and brighten the grey winter days. Hope the Montreal winter won't be too harsh.