Stranded Mermaid

St Swithun's church in Nately Scures (a very small place just off the A30 near Basingstoke) is tiny and very old, having been built by the Normans. And it has a mermaid.

Now, if you know where Basingstoke is, you'll realise that this mermaid (who lives on the top of the left-hand door pillar shown in the drawing below) is - by UK standards - a long way from home. Noone really knows what she's doing in Nately Scures, but I think that she's really rather charming.

Catch-up sketches January 5 to 8

Self portrait, watercolour

Part of Cover 2 Cover sketchbook exchange project
Smooth (ink)
Cartridge pen (as depicted)

Part of Cover 2 Cover sketchbook exchange project
Smooth (shave)
Acrylic.

A proper out-n-about sketch, of the village church from a convenient hill.
Fountain pen (not the same one)

Douai

This is Douai Abbey near Beenham in West Berkshire: the interior and exterior of the Abbey Church, drawn in Molotow markers

Woolhampton, West Berkshire: Green People carvings on St. Peter's Church

We found these delightful carvings on the side of St. Peter's Church in Woolhampton today: a green man and his lady apparently surrounded by vine leaves. I used a 2B pencil to draw them. Time was moving on and it was getting cold, so I left the lady's leaves unfinished.

See also The Woolhampton Green People on my main art blog.

Basingstoke Spiritualist Church

Yesterday, I had occasion to be loitering in the Proteus Creation Space car park. Our - Artikinesis' - exhibition was within the Creation Space. Making more pictures of Basingstoke was, of course, completely pointless.

So I did it anyway.

I had had my eye on the Spiritualist Church building for a while. A low, corrugated shack, directly opposite the grandeur of All Saints (not pictured), it looks like a relic from a not-too-distant past.

Drawn in an A6 sketchbook using Winsor and Newton's Indian Red calligraphy ink, loaded into my Sailor Fude de Mannen (Japanese calligraphy pen).

St. Mark and St. Luke, Avington

Church vertebrae? - 6B Graphite stick

A sketching expedition in the rain; an intriguing little 12th century Norman church. Made for each other

St. Mary's, Kingsclere - some detail sketches

Two rather quick sketches of parts of the splendid church of St. Mary's in Kingsclere. Both executed with the Japanese calligraphy pen.

St. Peter's, Headley

 

St Peter's is a pretty little church, surrounded by dense woodland o two sides, that I drive past fairly often. I've stopped to sketch it once before - albeit with less than satisfactory results. But that was a few years ago, and I think I may have got better at quick sketching.

I had to be quite quick - it was cold out there!

As well as the three sketches of the church, I also turned to the woods and a fabulous yew within the churchyard with stonework leaing up against it, and ivy-covered crosses... perhaps some people like their churchyards neat and tidy, but I do rather like to see evidence of nature and the passage of time.

Although I'm not laying claim to any churchyards, of course.

All sketches done using the Japanese calligraphy pen, with graphite added to the churchyard.

St. Mary's, Melton Mowbray, from Edgerton Lodge Gardens

This is a view of the town I grew up in. From a photograph taken in February 2013, on a return visit. I used a fuller palette for this sunlit winter scene.

Acrylic ink and watercolour on 300 g/m² fine grain / cold pressed (NOT) watercolour pad, 18 x 24 cm