Three pencil sketches

I drew these while I was staying at my parents house in Fife. I like to sketch people when they're concentrating on something, although it doesn't always lead to the most flattering portrait. My Dad was drawing leaves while I was drawing him - he's taking a botanical art course at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and had homework. Dad got fed up of drawing the leaf and started to draw Johnny, who developed a nice scowl ; ), so I turned my attention to him.

Yesterday there was heavy wet snow blown by a gale force north east wind, and the cats were hibernating by the wood burning stove. Louis, below, likes to be the centre of attention so he posed very nicely for me. I used a 2B pencil, a putty rubber, and my finger for smudging. Really, this is all you need to make a very nice drawing.

Long eared owl

Painted in watercolour and gouache. I was watching Futurama recently and noticed that in the future it is flocks of owls, rather than pigeons, which gather in the city streets. I'm looking forward to this. I'm fairly sure I saw a long eared owl in a forestry plantation near my parent's house in Fife, Scotland, - you usually see owls if you walk there late on a winters afternoon. But it might have been a short eared owl.

I have a cold and feel utterly minging. What better time to paint myself?

Monoprint

Monoprints are created by covering a sheet of paper with paint, then pressing another sheet on top and drawing or scratching it. Like when using carbon paper, the drawing is then transferred onto the back. I made this just because I had some spare paint, but it reminded me that actually it can be a really interesting technique. I used to do this at school quite a lot, I found it quite magical how a drawing is transformed into a print. It allows little room for error, as every mark shows - but on the plus side this results in a very spontaneous image. I think I might experiment more deliberately with monoprints.

Oil painting of rooks

I've been working hard to finish some bird paintings for my series Flocks and Shoals. However, last week I found out that the restaurant/gallery where I was due to exhibit in early April is closing, so I'm considering my options. We also had some very good news - Johnny was offered, and has accepted, a job at Lancaster University in the north west of England. We'll shortly be migrating back north to Lancaster (we both studied there). The immediate future is still a bit unknowable, but at least I now know where I'll be based for a few years. Yay! I'm trying to decide whether to try and find another venue for my paintings in Vienna, or to find a gallery in the UK.
This is an oil painting I did last week, based on all my sketches of the rooks. I painted the whole canvas very dark (Prussian) blue, in swirling strokes. Once it was completely dry I painted on the sky using a palette knife and a stiff bristle brush, leaving the shapes of the rooks. I'm fairly happy with the painting, I think the shiny dark paint works well as interesting negative shapes. It doesn't photograph so well, but this gives an idea.