When do New Year’s resolutions start? I’ve always felt from the Monday following January 1st! And I’m right 😉
Before I start posting new works and trying to get back into a daily habit I’ll catch up a few from last year.

With graphite, my aim or focus is more towards photorealism. I have always noticed how much better pictures look in a photo than in real life, I imagine that’s the same for everyone.
Maybe not. I lived in Paris for a few years and therefore, saw a huge amount of exhibitions. Two that stand out to me, were Toulouse Lautrec, and a picture of a horse he painted when he was 13, it was utterly extraordinary, you could feel the veins in the horse’s neck. And then there was the green-faced lady. If you check it out online, you will see a very average painting of a woman with a randomly green face. If you see it in real life, it glows, it is totally iridescent, and it’s beautiful. So I don’t know if this completely disproves my thinking (yes I can see it does) but anyway.
So my love of graphite is ongoing and I am excited about where it will go in 2025.

My watercolour painting is a mix of loose and highly realistic. Some parts have to depict clearly what one is trying to show, and then there is the ability to give impressions of feeling that the water and colour allow. As you can see, the dog below is from the same reference picture as the graphite one above. I genuinely do not know which one I prefer.

I have also been playing around with watercolour and inks. With the inks, they have to be non waterproof, so that they flow. The colours from them can be utterly amazing, so vibrant. I followed a course by Carne Griffiths, which was very intriguing. From the few pictures that I did with the course, I discovered that I liked adding some ink into my watercolours. Of course, this then means they can’t be considered pure watercolours, however, the vibrancy that was gained was worth it for me

And from this experience came what I am enjoying doing now, the most of the fox was watercolour, I then added some gorgeous Diamine inks which gave him the most amazing depth to his red.

So now we’re up to date. I’m on my journey count down to going full-time artist, fingers crossed it should be a fact within the next couple of months (tomorrow would suit me ;-).