I met with The Hotham Park sketchers today and was once more drawn to the sunny Lodge House garden where I sat on my folding stool balancing my little field watercolour box and did this in a small watercolour book wishing I had a bigger surface to work on. It was the design quality of…
Hotham Park Sketchers were to meet today but as a welcome steady rain was falling I ended up alone. Settling myself in a little pavilion with my book and watercolours I enjoyed the solitude and lovely sound of rain dripping from the roof. The landscape was quite magical with what I call a mother of…
It was hot in the Park so I sought shade for the hour sketching with the group. I had forgotten my folding stool so ended up in an awkward sideways position on a bench with the book in front of me and the paints on the bench too. I wanted to be broad and bold…
At the sketching in the park session today I decided to try using oil cryons again as I do like a challenge. It certainly was a challenge. To start with I was sitting in the sun in the Lodge house garden, mainly to get out of the nippy wind but alas the hot sun had…
This is part of a series based on looking into the canopy of the trees in Hotham Park. I may need to do a little more work to tidy one or two loose ends but its nearly there. I somtimes wonder why I start things like this!
Hotham Park Sketchers met today and it was so nice to feel the warm sun while I sat in the little Mediterranean garden drawing this Jerusalem Sage (Phlomis) which is one of my favourite plants with its velvety leaves and green buds. It will erupt bright yellow flowers later then green seedheads changing to a…
I return again again to this patch of teasels in the conservation area of the park. They start a lovely soft green then the mauve flowers appear and they gradually change into gentle beiges and finally shades of brown. I have incuded them in several artworks.
Spring I mean. We have a really sunny day after days of mist, mirk and rain and the park is buzzing with all kinds of activity like tree surgery, dog walking, coffee taking at the cafe and the cawing of the resident crows up in their nests. At last it does feel like what has…
Some of the willow trees in the wildlife conservation area of Hotham Park have had a real hair cut. I was delighted to see this cat who seems to be a bit of a local character as I have spotted it before.
Keeping a park the size of Hotham looking good is a huge job and there has to be a nice balance between formality and wildness. Sometimes the wildness gets the upper hand so recently there has been big clean up with brambles and overgrown beds cleared, including the conservation pond which had completely reeded over….
ritasspot, a blog about Hotham Park by it's Artist in Residence 