Jessie Lilac Blog

Here are my latest pages from my sketchbook. Life's been very busy this year and I haven't found the time to make finished paintings as such but I do make time most mornings to sit down and fill a sketchbook page. If I have a gap of not doing any art for more than a week I find it reeeeally difficult to get back into it again so these pages are important to keep the creative part of my brain up and running. The top one is done with Tombow Dual Brush pens and watercolour.  This one above is an inky background with a Posca painting on top.  This one's done in the same way with Posca painting on top of a layer of indian yellow FW ink.  I was having a difficult emotional day when I made this one.  When I looked at this later I was amazed I can see in it just how I was feeling that day. I love it when art does this don't you? And finally  a more cheery one! I used my ✨Sparkling ✨ Posca pens for this, they're so fun to use you can't but he...

I've been busy making daily paintings and here are a few of my most recent ones. I also have some finished paintings for sale listed in my Etsy shop but more of that later. Sometimes it's nice to have a break and a few days ago we visited Tintinhull in Somerset. The house is very beautiful and because of its smaller scale than most National trust properties, very homely too.  The view from the house into the garden is very pretty. It's lovely to wander around the garden, arranged like little rooms that link one to another.  A feast for the eyes from the beautiful and delicately coloured pale lemon tulips and hyacinths  ♥   ♥ and the Heuchera Plum Royale. (I had to Google that!)  😉 How very perfect don't you think? A very pretty house and garden. So now I'd like to show you my newest paintings. This one above is called Marina and is painted on 300gsm (140lb) watercolour paper with inks. I've listed it in my Et...

I've had a very busy weekend with family and travelling so I'm sorry that my giveaway announcement is a little later than promised! Thankyou for all your lovely comments telling me which print you'd like to win. I'd love to send you all the print of your choice but there has to be one winner, and the name picked out of the hat is: Donna Maria Lynn  Well done Donna! As you can see I've been having more fun in my sketchbook with my new Tombow pens and Distress Crayons. The nibs of the crayons are quite thick, like a lipstick but I find they come into their own when used as a background. When they're dry, I like to draw with a black pen on top. The Tombow pens work very well on top of the background too. We had a long journey to make on Sunday so we decided to stop at Glastonbury for a break on the way home. It's been quite an action packed few days. My youngest son was flying back to Spain, my eldest son got engaged and we accepted an...

It's April and today has been such a warm sunny day  so we went to visit a lovely National Trust garden. The bulbs are in bloom and although the trees are only just beginning to show their buds, they're already looking so beautiful in the sunshine. Tulips! And what a beautiful shade of purple they are too. :)  These strange looking yews look as though they might move around the garden at night don't you think? Or is it just me?! On the way home we saw this lovely little wooden hut in the middle of the countryside. I'd love a bell like that outside my house, although on a windy night it might not be such a great idea! This week has been a busy one, repainting things that need attention, getting our holiday lets in Devon ready for the summer season. The gardens always needs tidying so we had our work cut out but the views from here make up for it as you can see. The harbour's very pretty and I love those roof t...

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 ...

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 ...