Category: watercolour

Low Tide

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ Leave a comment

On a recent brief visit to South West Wales we stopped off at a place called Laugharne on the south coast. Home to a Medieval castle (a lot of castles in Wales) which later became an Elizabethan mansion, but did not survive the Civil War, and has remained a ‘Romantic ruin’ ever since.

Later, Wales’s national poet, Dylan Thomas lived there for a time in The Boathouse, a house perched on a cliff with stunning views. I believe Thomas is buried in the local church and his home is now a museum.

There were a few small boats there when we visited, but as it was low tide they were going nowhere.

Carmarthen morning

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ Leave a comment

A painting from a quick trip to Wales, “Carmarthen morning” 13 x 20 inches. Covered a lot of miles in a short space of time and travelled further west into Wales than I have before. Lucky with the weather, most of the rain fell overnight, leaving the days damp but bright.

Preparing

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ Leave a comment

Getting ready for the start of a new term tomorrow – it will be the first time we have been together in a real live face to face class since covid. It will be good to see everyone other than their head and shoulders staring out of a screen!

Lifting the spirits

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ 2 Comments

I was feeling a bit low today. Probably something to do with the low light levels after all the sunshine we have been enjoying over the past week. However, finding a bright Orange and pairing it with a blue and white jug (and an apple), and applying watercolours did wonders to lift my spirits.

Watering cans

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ Leave a comment

Now that April is here and we have a holiday weekend, it is inevitably time to start getting serious about the garden. Seedlings are already in the grow house or on window ledges, but now it is time for lawn mowers and large tools. All very well, but these are stuck at the back of the shed, and the floor space is taken up by the garden seat, table and chairs which have been wintering under cover, and have provided a useful perch for watering cans and the like. I think it is going to take most of the weekend to unearth all the tools we need to begin another year of adventure in the garden.

High and Dry

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ Leave a comment

Time has run out for this car. It has reached the end of the road.

Was it once a much loved family friend, carrying memories of the open road, shared holidays by the seaside, exploring different parts of the country? Was it used for the school run or did it take a busy salesman from one town to another?

Was it always in the hands of one owner or did it belong to a number of different people, changing hands often as the mileage clocked up? Whatever its past, I can’t help feeling it has a sad ending.

Spring shadows

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ Leave a comment

We have had some lovely weather recently and it certainly brought people out in their droves, but away from the centre of the village, there were fewer people about. Naturally they wanted to take photos of where they had been – and of themselves – but it is sometimes the less obvious moments which serve to inspire, such as some bare trees by a gate and the pattern of shadows thrown across the road.

Colours of Spring

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ Leave a comment

Once the front garden is alive with the blues, yellows and pinks of bulbs, you can be sure that Spring is here, and if things are not quite all right with the world, than it must be taken as a sign that better times must surely be on the way.

It is also a time when we can be fooled into thinking that is safe to plant out our seedlings, only to discover that there is still plenty of time for frosts to upset our plans.

In the meantime, it is the perfect opportunity to sketch the colours of Spring.

Floppy Tulips

~ grahamfindlaywatercolours ~ 2 Comments

As predicted, it didn’t take the tulips long to start flopping, and once they start, they don’t stop. By the time you have drawn them, they have flopped some more. There is no point trying to correct the drawing because by the time you have, they have moved again. It’s a race the tulips always win! Not that it matters, as long as you end up with a reasonable painting!