A jar of cosmos flowers. 

Rather random, but I'm exploring the flower shapes and colours.

I became overly fussy, but when I come to do a commission involving these flowers, I guess I may be more able to come up with something better.

Today I had to mend my shed because something (wind?) or someone had twisted off the hasp and splintered the panels. 

Perhaps I exhausted my creativity in the process. 

Today, when I got to the allotment, I was disoriented. I found the shed hasp twisted and the panels splintered. I thought it was the wind that had done it. At first.

Then a fellow allotmenteer showed me a neighbour's shed. His lock had been completely torn off and the padlock discarded. It looked like human's work. So I'm not sure.

I abandoned my plans to mend the shed. I lost the light, so when I got home, I painted these shore-line stones, next to my grandfather's spring-lidded pocket compass. I like to think he carried this in WW1. 

Re-orientation. It seemed appropriate.

I started to paint Colin a few days ago. Today, I tried again, from a photo, on my way to London.

I find that watercolour on the train is surprisingly doable - perched on my bag, with a tiny water container on my lap. Pencil, small pad, an angle brush and a limited palette is all that's needed.

Travelling light is liberating for the mind; clutter of equipment impedes - it's just too much hassle.

I'll return to this tomorrow.

My paper silhouetttes of stars and animals to decorate our street-facing window for the 'festive season'. It looks virtually the same (in negative at night) from the outside looking in.

We have the ox and ass, reindeer (of course), camels and sheep, and various arcane family references.

Sellotape, paper and scissors - actually the same scissors as in my previous blog painting. 

Six more stones from the beach and a pair of nail scissors.

Random stuff.

Today I went to a writing group. We wrote plays.

Perhaps the intriguing ideas that circulated - including a talking ironing-board - led me to find this mini-drama in amongst my clutter.

I struggled today.

It's always sobering to experience the difficulty of joining others in a portrait session.

Rushing into this didn't help. I was too impatient to measure angles. And later I couldn't correct proportions

So I'm afraid I haven't done justice to Colin in either the long sketch or the short one. But he exuded benevolence and was a very good sitter.

Seven stones in watercolour.

This is my go-to exercise when nothing seems to be going right.

The endless fascination of beach pebbles: random assemblies of found objects from the shore.

Newer than I am to this particular space, but formed far longer, and for far longer, than me.

Just beginning a study of a watercolour by the Norwich artist John Sell Cotman.

Cotman painted 'The Ploughed Field' in 1808 when war with France required increased food production. This was at a time when working conditions for tenant farmers were already under pressure from the Enclosure act and mechanised changes brought on by the agricultural revolution.

Still got to include the scarecrows and the man walking the path across the far hillside. 

The furrows seem to emphasise the farmer's vulnerability in the wide landscape.

Watercolour sketch from memory - sunset down by the river in Priory Country Park.

Golden time. About 3:30 - 4 o'clock.

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