New paintings and regular art updates.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was history. I decided to draw the pool at Bodnant Gardens, a house and gardens run by the National Trust near, Llandudno in North Wales. Its well known for its beautiful laburnum walk and many flowering shrubs and plants. The upper part near the house has lawns and perennial plants while the garden slopes down to a river and has lovely wooded areas.
Swallow falls, out in the wilds of mid Wales, on the way to Snowdonia near Beddgelert. Its a beautiful place. I’ve only visited it once about twenty years ago. This drawing was based on an Internet search as waterfalls was the prompt for #bandofsketchers on Tuesday.
St David’s day (the patron Saint of Wales 🏴), Shrove Tuesday (pancake day) and the (meteorological) 1st day of Spring. All tied up in one day this year, the 1st of March. I know shrove Tuesday moves around, its generally in February I think? It is connected with Easter which falls on a full moon? And also the 1st of March isn’t always on a Tuesday! So it drifts around the calendar. Also linked with Lent, giving up something for lent, like chocolate, is a well known thing that Christians do at this time of year. St David’s day is celebrated with daffodils, Wales with dragons. I wonder if they have dragons holding daffodils. Then the first day of spring? Apparently the actual start is later in March so this must just be a way of dividing the year up into four equal quarters. Time moves on.
Tulips in the kitchen. Now I need some daffodils for tomorrow which is the 1st of March and St David’s day.
Wales has many symbols, the daffodil, the leek and last but not least, the Welsh dragon that appears on their flag.
It is always good to get to March, it is the start of the Metereological Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. I expect we will be blasted by March winds. But tulips and daffodils cheer me up.
I just found this photo, and my mind is taken back to a Sunday afternoon in Prestatyn, Wales. We were visiting family and decided to call in here to have a coffee and cake. The place was part cafe, part second hand shop. The window ledges were covered in succulents (money plants). I remember a huge Teddybear on one side of the room with a big nose. A teapot sign hung in the window. The cafe was near the railway station.
Taking a sketchbook out helps me remember places, it gives me a reference point, and as it takes time to draw the image its not like a photo, it’s got less information but you can choose how it looks (miss things out, add things).
I don’t always remember my sketch books, but when I do, and I have the time to draw or paint I really enjoy it.
Alien rocket.? No just the Rhyl tower from our hotel room window. The colours change over a few minutes. It’s quite amazing seeing this structure as you go to bed!
I remember a cyclo camping holiday in Wales with my hubby. We forgot the main tent. We got to Wales on the train and to our campsite. It was only when we unpacked the tent we realised we had left the tent airing on the washing line at home. We had to tie our groundsheet onto a young man’s tent for shelter, it was raining and not good under there despite having our sleeping bags. So we went in the camp bar and bought the lad whiskeys to say thanks for him helping us out. Then in the morning we realised we had spent all our holiday money on booze so we had to comeback the next day. We ended up in the guards van of the train with a rugby team because there were no seats. They were Very Rude! Worst holiday ever!
Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was ‘take a break’ so I chose to draw this image from the front of the 2021 National Trust Guidebook. It’d just drawn in coloured pencil, charcoal pencil and fine liner black ink pen.
I need a break! So I would take it at Bodnant garden near Llandudno in Wales. It’s a National Trust garden. A beautiful place which drops into a wooded valley and is surrounded by the Welsh hills and mountains. We are missing the laburnum walk that will be in flower now. I hope to go there soon.
Smiling cloud faces, view of Snowdonia, Wales, UK , June I think, 2019. Wishing I was there now. We haven’t been able to visit for over a year because of Covid…I saw this again today and remembered how enjoyable it was just travelling, exploring, driving down roads I’d never been down before. I don’t mind not driving much, but I’d like to go to a few nice places again….
Seen in a shop in Llandudno in 2019.
I would have bought it if I had space in my house. The flame like decoration makes it appear as if it were molten. Like magma or lava erupting from a crack in the earth. Like an Icelandic fumerol. So we’ll modelled, gnashing teeth, mouth open, ready to spit flame.
Welsh dragons are amazing symbols, whilst the English Saint, St George, is famed for killing one. Anyway, I still wish I had bought him. X
Mallaband-Brown