Castiglion Florentino from Robyn in Tuscany!!

Hi everyone, I was so excited to get this wonderful postcard from Robyn in Italy!! She says that August is there hottest month so she has only walked to her garden. I know how you feel Robyn! It has been a cooker over here too! I have to grab the time either early or late these days. I will be happy for fall to start this year. I love the pigeons that have taken time to either refresh themselves or eat close enough for you to sketch. I so loved Tuscany when we were there, hope to visit with you the next time I can manage an overseas vacation! Thanks you so much for the wonderful card!!!

My last card - Birdies from Robyn

Robins and a blue tit by Robyn

I have a folder on my computer and inside it are all the scans of the postcards I've received over the last twelve months from A Postcard from my Walk project.  It's a mini gallery - as this blog is - of all the postcards from this wonderful project which I have enjoyed so much - even if I've been a little late with my own postcards from time to time!

This image has just joined them and, if my reckoning is correct, this makes it the last card that I'm due to receive from this project.

How appropriate then that that my last card should be Robins by Robyn!

She tells me that her exercise during winter is climbing up her garden steps in Castiglion Fiorentino to fill the bird feeders which apparently the local cats think is the new locale of a brand new restaurant for them.  It's so tricky getting bird feeders located where you get at them easily but the cats can't!

It must be even trickier now that the garden in Castiglion Fiorentino has had snow and expeditions by manly blokes are required to bring home the bird seed!

Robyn has sketched her birds in fluid acrylic - which surprised me as I initially thought it was watercolour.  I'm still trying to work out how she managed the splendid spattered background without getting it all over the birds too!

Thank you so much for my Italian birdies which will always remind me of Robin!

Postcard from Castiglion Fiorentino

Thank you so much Robyn for this lovely card. The images on the card increase my wish to travel to Italy again. Yes, in fact, it would be terrific if we met one day and sketched together. The quince – including the leaf – you've painted looks perfect in color and shape. I can almost feel the velvet surface. I think your report of your afternoon sketch group and the other information you have written can be read easily here on the blog. Thanks again! Albrecht

Sunflowers of Summer

Robyn Sinclair
Watercolor and ink on Paper

This wonderful postcard arrived on just the day I needed a fresh look at a gloomy day.  It brightened my attitude and the rest of my day.  Thank you Robyn, you made my day so much better.  Can you imagine sitting in front of this wonderful vista?  Robyn has these picturesque scenes all around where she lives in Italy. I dream of one day visiting and painting with her at all the wonderful places she sees every day. 

Robyn and her binoculars!

I'd forgotten that, as well as sketching and posting postcards, I also receive them. So getting a beautiful  watercolour scene from Umbria, Italy was such a lovely surprise today. 

Now, we at Sketchercise know how much Robyn treasures her binoculars, but to use them to see a distant view which she thought I would enjoy, and, at the same time sketch that view is possibly even a first for Robyn! And I do love it - the hillside house, the patterns of fields and trees and the Umbrian greens at this time of year.

Thankyou Robyn for the effort you've made. I do appreciate it. Though, at the same time I have this lovely, quirky mental image of you holding binoculars in one hand and a paintbrush in the other busily sketching and its making me smile - as you always do!!

The reason everyone dreams of a villa in Tuscany

I was so pleased to receive this enchanting Tuscan miniature by Robyn Sinclair in the mail! Doesn’t it look about as idyllic as your wildest imaginings of fantastic places to live and paint… and garden or, better yet, admire other people’s impressive efforts?  Robyn says the town, Castiglion Fiorentino, is “right in the heart of the breadbasket of Italy.”  Looks like they can provide the makings of a pretty respectable antipasto and something nice to drink with that bread as well!

A Postcard from Robyn, Tuscany

I was EXTREMELY excited to receive a beautiful card from Robyn in the mail. In this world wide land of online art communities, there is nothing so special as having an original artwork in your hand. I think that this has a special charm for me as it brings back wonderful memories of the last few days of my big trip when I actually spent time with Robyn in this gorgeous part of the world.

Thank you Robyn - what an exquisite sketch from a truly beautiful village!!!

Introducing Robyn Sinclair

I've always loved to walk....

Trekking in Kashmir - 1980s

and to draw.....

Sketching in the garden with my Muse

Just over a year ago Sketchercise brought the two passions together.

As an Australian writer and producer of television drama I'd always had the itch to paint but seldom the time even to scratch. That, I left to my Muse.

Since 2005, I have been living with my husband and our dogs in an old Tuscan hill town. I finally have the time to focus on my art. It is impossible to live here and not be influenced by Italian art and landscape.

The search for my own style has taken me down many paths, all of them absorbing and exciting. My main focus is watercolour and gouache but I am fortunate to have access to a local printmaking studio and an oil painting group. I've been blogging about all of these activities for over five years.

Sketchercise finally drove me out of the studio and into the countryside where I discovered the pleasure of making little watercolour sketches along the way.

Then I thought what fun it would be to exchange these as postcards.