Jessie Lilac Blog

  Here are some pages from my sketchbook that I've done over the past few days. This one's done with watercolour and I've added details with my Sakura pens. I love how you can draw with them on top of another colour.  This drawing I did with a black pen and watercolour. I've made a little video of the process if you'd like to see.... Once again I didn't keep the bottom part of the drawing within the screen! It seems to be a different size screen on Youtube from my camera, so next time I'll have to remember that! I hope you all have a lovely week and the sun pops its head out for you  now and again. At least the seagulls are happy! Bye for now. xx

After the dramatic weather at the start of the week things have calmed down and we've even had a snippet of sun. It's very cold though!  We had a beautiful rainbow over the harbour. I've just noticed that boat in the foreground is called 'Serenity'. It seems to sum up the picture doesn't it?  ( actual reality = bitingly cold wind! ) Shall I show you my new woolly creations? I've knitted myself a jumper in these gorgeous colours. ♥ ♥ ♥  I bought a ball of the coppery brown to go with the multi coloured wool. I think it matches quite nicely. I love this colour combo so much, I'd like to cover the whole world in it. ♥ ♥   ♥ ♥ But I won't just yet  Because I have a large bag of double knit that's been waiting patiently to be made into a shawl. I spent ages choosing which colours to use but there was one in particular that had to be included. Can you guess which one? Oh my lordy how much do I love cr...

Hello! I've had a lovely couple of days in Cornwall but before I tell you about that, let me show you what I've been doing. In between 'proper' work assignments I'm still doing my daily sketches. This one's made with Prismacolor pencils, they're my new favourites. My old favourites were a cheap set of WHS coloured pencils which I thought were amazing but they really don't get much of a look in these days now I've discovered the Prismacolors! They're so lovely and waxy and even on this thin paged sketchbook you can get lovely rich colours. I've made a little video of me in action. Would you like to see? The day before we left for Cornwall I made a very springlike drawing (above). At the time of drawing this the weather was quite the opposite, much wind and rain and so dark I could hardly see what I was doing. There was much talk on the news about Storm Imogen so I might have guessed our stay at the Cornish Coast would be a li...

First of all an apology to those of you I've confused with my new blog. I've decided to return to this one as it's the one you all know (and hopefully love !) Normal posting will resume here and I'm planning to post much more regularly than I have in the past. So what have I been up to?  At the weekend we found ourselves near Castle Combe .  It's a very pretty village in south of the cotswolds in Wiltshire and has been used as a film location for various films: Doctor Doolittle, Warhorse and one of my favourite films, Stardust. A path in the churchyard led us to the very beautiful hotel there, the Manor House Hotel. This picture shows just a small section of the building. I love the rooftops with all their finials and gables. There's something about old rooftops that intrigues me, no idea why but I could stare at them for ages. Back at home I've been continuing with my morning doodles,  this one is based on the image ...

I'm working on an illustration project at the moment but it involves more serious drawing than my usual style so a bit of drawing practice was in order! I've set myself a task of making a doodle each morning. I've also joined the sketch-a-day group run by  Ruthie  on Facebook and this week the topic is insects. I copied this from a photo of a stag beetle. I couldn't have done it from life, they scare the bejeepers out of me! It's done in pen and watercolour. Meanwhile out in the garden, I woke to a coating of pretty frost. Last winter it was so mild I didn't see any frost in the garden at all so it was a surprise to see the pretty white coating on my rosebud. Icicles are so pretty aren't they? Even the poor primroses had their share. As I write this post today, the frost has gone and believe it or not the flowers have survived! It's still quite cold but that won't stop me going to the beach. ...

This top picture I started by drawing a circle within a circle. I found that having a particular shape to fill was easier than filling a rectangle which is the usual shape for a picture isn't it? Would you like to see some more pages from my sketchbook that were done in the past few days? Here's a 2 page spread where I used just black pen and experimented with different shapes and patterns. The painting on the lefthand page was copied from a book about Beatrix Potter that I'm reading at the moment, from one of the illustrations of her watercolour studies. Since she was very young she did many studies from nature, the book has loads of lovely illustrations of her early work as well as the more well known paintings. I should blog about it one of these days but for those of you who can't wait that long ;) it's called Beatrix Potter, 188-1943, The Artist and her World. Published for the National Trust by F.Warne & Co. Here are some close ...