196 Cards from A Postcard from my walk - a tribute to Earth Day

Our project has come to an end. With many stories to tell about lost cards and some destroyed by rain and some never received and some resent...it was exciting, kept us on our toes and we were constantly challenged to come up with interesting and original subjects. But here we are...a little over a year later and very appropriate for earth day 2012, we look back on our cards and a great satisfaction and contentment bring a smile to our faces. It was a year well spent around the pencil and brush.

 

Click on each image to see the bigger version.

Cards sent by:

Albrecht Richter - Germany

Alison Staite - England

Bridget Hunter - Scotland

Cathy Gatland - South Africa

Charlene Brown - Canada

Desirée Dianne Habicht - USA

Felicity Grace - Switzerland

Katherine Tyrrell - England

Liz Steel - Australia

Martin Stankewitz - Germany

Pat Reece - USA

Robyn Sinclair - Italy

Ronelle van Wyk

Vivien Blackburn - England

Thank you to everybody who shared this trip with us around the world, whether it was by regular visits or leaving comments or simply just stopping by. The more the company, the merrier the spirit!

Thank you!

What a Finale!

My last postcard has arrived safely and how appropriate that it is from Katherine Tyrrell, who brought us all together through Sketchercise.

Do click on the image and you will see I've posted a large version so everyone can enjoy Katherine's beautiful fine penwork and her skilled approach to overlaying different layers of coloured pencil to achieve wonderfully natural colours.

This is certainly more painting than postcard - 16.5 x 24 cms on Arches HP.  It's a drawing of the new Chinese Pagoda in London's Victoria Park.  Such beautiful reflections in the West Lake which Katherine says is not yet full again following the major desilt operation. 

Thank you so much, Katherine.  This one is now in search of a suitable frame.

Willow reflections

Katherine's card popped up at Coin Perdu in the New Year, but it was actually done still in the old year. Maybe reflecting on the old year, while sketching the reflections of the willow...?

..the willows..
done in colored pencil and pen on Arches HP paper, 19x28.5cm

Between the full sketch and the crop below, one can get a great feeling of the marks Katherine makes with her pencils and pen. a lot of cross hatching, some erasing for the higlights, some darker pressure here and a soft touch there... I especially love the darkness of the reflections breaking up into softer tones and hues and more highlights and finally disappear into the lefthand corner, adding such lovely diagonal movement. I feel as if I'm slowly passing in a canoe, dragging my hand through the ripples and reflections.

...the willows(detail)...

Katherine chose to compliment the Loire here in my world with her sketch of the willows at the basin of the Regent's canal there in her world...very appropriate and very special! Thank you for a lovely card Katherine!

Pagoda in Katharine's local park

I have not even looked for Katherine’s signature on her postcard. The beautiful drawing of a park in her neighborhood with a pagoda could only have been drawn by her. It is her unique artistc style.

I used a magnifying glass to see what Katherine has used first. The red felt pen. Right? The red lines give the drawing a warm expression as in the postcards that we all cherish.

Even the colors of the stamps are matching those in her drawing!

Thank you Katherine so much for the beautiful card.

Stunning Autumn Glory at Sheffield Park

This card needs no words.  Enjoy!   I certainly am.  It's genuinely tremendous!!

Thank you so much Katherine.  I have been studying it carefully working out the technique.  The delicate interlace of pen and coloured pencil works brilliantly.

Lucky me!

If you'd like to know more about the wonders of Sheffield Park see Katherine's recent posts on her sketchbook blog:

• Autumn Colour at Sheffield Park
• An Indian Summer (and ice lakes) at Sheffield Park

Great Dixter, Sussex

I don't think my words, or my scanner, can do justice to this magnificent card from Katherine. It's a symphony of colour. Katherine has a unique way of blending and layering her colour pencils so that all the colours are visible and appear to radiate off the paper. The reds in the shadow areas have an incredible effect on the greens and how she has managed to capture that soft, warm, hazy sunlight, I will never know!

Thank you Katherine, for this beautiful card!

Kew Gardens

This exquisite colored pencil and sepia ink painting is from Katherine Tyrrell .  She said this is a sketch of one of her favorite views in Kew Gardens.  It’s the east/west axis from the Palm House looking toward the Chinese Pagoda.  The Pagoda in reality is a deep crimson but Katherine said it always looks blue when viewed from a distance.

It was such a treat to come home from my vacation/working week away to find this wonderful piece of art just sitting there waiting for me.  I can’t even put into words the beauty of each colored pencil stroke combined with another color to magically make shape and depth and glowing contrast.

A Beach in London!

You wouldn't think that Katherine had been going through a torrid time in London, looking at this tranquil scene in her local park. She transformed the drained lake into an 'urban beach' scene in her distinctive cross-hatching with coloured pencils style - so beautiful to see in the original. I love the clean, elegant composition and the lovely cool colours - gives me a feeling of a real haven of peace in spite of what had been going on very closeby.
And don't the British just do the most beautiful stamps!?

A walk in Provence

Last year a friend and I drove 3000 miles across France. Amid all the wonderful scenery one abiding memory is the bright, light greens of the vines. I don't know what I'd expected, but certainly not lines of almost lime green traversing the hillsides and valleys.

Katherine has captured perfectly that amazing colour and also the atmosphere of heat and sunshine using coloured pencils in, what I'd describe as,  a  very painterly way. This is a perfect reminder of my travels. Thankyou Katherine.

Detail showing lovely purple shadows and different greens.

This was the view Katherine saw frequently as she returned home from walks through the surrounding countryside when, with 3 other artists, she spent several weeks in Provence this summer.

This wonderful time has been recorded in the Blog Four Go Painting In Provence.

Private View of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters

Mall Galleries, The Mall, London, by Katherine Tyrrell

Kathine Tyrrell often reviews major exhibitions in the UK on her highly-ranked art blog Making a Mark, and she sometimes does amazing sketches of the other folks invited to the private viewings and previews.  Although she sketched this nicely nuanced vignette early in May she had it propped up near her computer and “forgot to post it on time because it had become part of (her) office!”  I’m absolutely thrilled that when she finally got it mailed, it arrived in Victoria in just a few days, and now it’s part of MY office!  

Katherine has written many wonderfully helpful posts about sketching on Travels with a Sketchbook and Making a Mark (one of my favourites is 10 tips for how to sketch people) – but to actually sketch so beautifully and with such apparent ease takes hundreds of hours of practice, upon which I’ve barely started… so you can see why I’m so very pleased to have received this 'original’ from Katherine herself.

Gallery-May postcards

The round-up of our May postcards.

A postcard from London - the meeting place

The Mall Galleries, London, Katherine Tyrrell, coloured pencil

I've been lucky enough to scan through Katherine's sketchbooks on many occasions when we've met up - but never owned any of her work  - until now :>)

This gorgeous large card was waiting for me when I got back from Cornwall.   It's of the entrance to the Mall Galleries, huge trees along the pavement, luminous spring leaves with a wonderful subtle dappled light filtering through and making the grey pavements alive with colour.

It's where we often meet up on the rare occasions when I manage to get down to London so a familiar and very apt subject.

I love the attitude of the man in the centre of the group of   :>).

The warm colour of the poster is just perfect as a small accent amongst all that spring green.

The bulk, weight and age of that front tree is well done.

Altogether - I'm delighted!   I'm building such a lovely collection from you all :>)

Thank you everyone

Trees by the Tate - Greetings from London

During the lunch break I heard a rattling at letter box and I was delighted to find this beautiful postcard from London inside. Katherine Tyrrell had taken the time and effort to sketch some trees at the famous Tate Gallery, London and had posted them to me.

The drawing is in coloured liner pen and coloured pencils I think, on a buff white strong card in a slightly panoramic view (1:2). I like the way how people are arranged in different scale from foreground to the background and it is nice to follow them through the picture. To me it seems like a film still and immediately I began to wonder what the story could be about.

Thank you very much Katherine for this unique piece of mail art.

An expensive painting, February postcard from Katherine

Look what I got in the mail – a beautiful coloured pencil version of Pierre Bonnard’s Terrasse à Vernon by Katherine Tyrrell. She says it auctioned at Christies for a mere sum of 6.4mGBP (sorry I don’t have a pound symbol on my Australian keyboard!)

The colours in this postcard are amazing and so vibrant and a real treat on a very dark and grey autumn Sydney day (yes, we do have days like that – occasionally!)

Thank you Katherine!

[NOTE:  You can read more about why/how this postcard was created in "After Bonnard" on Katherine's blog]

Postcard from Katherine Tyrrell, London

I was the lucky recipient of Katherine's first post card! She had a outing with other artists to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London where she penned these beautiful butterflies.

Thank you Katherine for such a lovely card. My daughter, who loves butterflies asked is she could have it framed for her room, I think we might fight over who gets to keep this one! I admire all those tiny pen strokes that make up the butterflies, then it seems like you added some colored pencil to complete the masterpiece. A lovely way to start my spring season, thank you so much!!! 

Introducing Katherine Tyrrell

Sketches in London by Katherine Tyrrell

My involvement with the Postcard from my Walk project dates back to 2006 and a small group of bloggers who were all taking their sketchbooks with them as they took regular exercise.  It was the sketching version of a painting a day - with walking a mile thrown in!

Sketchercise

What became very clear to me was that they kept going because of the mutual support.  That notion of mutual support was the main reason I founded Sketchercise in June 2009 - see

• Sketchercise! (the blog post) 
• Sketchercise the Ning site (by invitation only)
• Sketchercise on Flickr for those people who would like to give Sketchercise a try.

Why A Postcard from my Walk is important to me

A Postcard from my Walk is a project/blog for regular contributors to the Sketchercise Ning Group.  The idea is to produce sketches which we can see for real as opposed to on our screens in a digital format.

The other main reason why I need a group and the discipline of walking and sketching is that I have a disability in my feet.  I've experienced cycles of tissue contraction/falls/tearing tissue which leaves me on crutches for 6 weeks plus very poor balance and constant pain in my feet.

I've adopted a strategy of trying to manage risks better.  In 2009 I decided to try and exercise more so that I could lose weight, reduce swelling and hence reduce the risks of more falls/tissue tears/etc.   Walking is also the best way for me of exercising my feet and strengthening the soft tissue which, after many falls and tears, is fairly mangled.  My physio has commented in the past about how much simpler it would be if I broke bones rather than tearing tissue!

In 2009, I gave up all the naughty calories (eg alcohol, chocolate, biscuits, cakes, cheese and anything else which was packed full of calories for relatively little nutritional value) PLUS vowed to do a lot more walking. As a result, in fits and starts (largely related to things like flu and how active I was) by the end of the year I had achieved a weight loss of very nearly 3 stones. 

8 reasons to exercise (my personal memory jogger!)

1. Exercise strengthens and stretches muscles which helps to prevent pain and being pain free means being able to draw and paint and do other activities for longer!
2. Exercise improves balance, which prevents injuries
3. Exercise builds bones
4. Exercise reduces stress!!!!
5. Exercise lowers cholesterol
6. Exercise creates endorphins which make you feel great both during and after exercise
7. Regular exercise rebuilds the habit of regular exercise
8. Exercise leads to weight loss and looking better

It also helped me work on my Ecology Park Pond series

Last year, I was working hard for my local residents association.  A major local redevelopment caused me a phenomenal amount of work in getting to grips with planning law/regulations and lobbying hard on pre-commencement planning conditions.  This meant I first took a break from exercise and sketching and then took a break from the Sketchercise group as the workload on the planning front threatened to swamp me.  As a result of a very sedentary lifestyle in 2010 the weight piled back on!  I don't in any way regret the commitment I made but I now need to get back to walking again as it's very clear that this is the key to my weight loss - and keeping it off!

Which means that A Postcard from my Walk comes at a very opportune time for me. I'm now more than ever convinced that:

• regular long walks help me lose weight and maintain weight loss
• I need the virtual company and encouragement of others to make sure I keep going

The nice thing about this project is that I've got to achieve the production of a postcard each month - so I need to get out and about again.

My travels with a sketchbook

When I travel I sketch and when I sketch I record the stories behind sketches from my travels in my blog.  

I'm a great devotee and promoter of the value of sketching and you can:

• See sketches done all around the world on my website
• Read about my sketching trips on my sketching blog Travels with my sketchbook in......  eg
• Venice in 2005,  
• California / South Western States and New England in 2006 and  
• Paris and Normandy in 2009
• plus all my local outings in London and the rest of the UK.

Travels with my sketchbook

• Read my Advice on How to Sketch

You'll find that most of my sketches are:

• local places in East London
• trips to places - often parks and gardens - in London
• generated while walking around major galleries and museums or my local branch of a huge supermarket if surfaces are wet or slippery
• often involve a stop for a cup of tea!

The major challenge for me will be sketching as small as 7" x 5"!  I usually sketch much larger.......