A Memory of Paris

I received this postcard from Robyn a few weeks ago and it's been propped by my computer ever since.  I know Robyn likes to do plein air work when she's visiting cities, but this time in the middle of winter, the weather just didn't play ball.  Instead she painted part of the interior of her apartment in the area of Ile St Louis.

I say wretched weather! But lucky me!  I get to have this lovely cosy scene instead.

October card from Robyn

The "Chiostro die S. Francesco" looks like a serene place to relax from everyday life, a marvelous place to draw undisturbed. Robyn drew the cloister in the technique of solar etching print. A technique that I have never tried. I found on youtube some movies that show very well how it works. Thanks Robyn for this lovely card showing how beautiful you have it where you live.




On the other side of the card there is a little extra piece of art: "The watercolour is a beautiful little enemy from our garden« Robyn wrote.

Tuscan Black Figs

Look at this totally stunning postcard I received from Robyn this month! Wow! I love everything about it- the wonderful watercolour work, the colours, the composition, the details on the blue plate and how delicious it looks. These are black figs from their garden and was painted using the wonderful Winsor and Newton Potters Pink colour- this is paint colour that Robyn got me onto last year and it has become a standard for me. Thanks Robyn- I love this!

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!!!

Castiglion Florentino

Robyn Sinclair
Watercolor on paper

Robyn sketched this postcard in Paris, France when she was on vacation last month and then she said she painted it in Italy when she got home.  It is lovely and a real treat for me because I was at this shop a gazillion years ago and it seems like yesterday.  This card is also special because some of us in the Postcard From My Walk group helped Sennelier with a study for their new formula of watercolor paint that has now just become available to the public.  Robyn said she hadn't realized it was beside the river, on the Left Bank.  It really was Sketchercise getting there and back.

PS the stamp is very cool, too. 

A Hare and a Robin, from Robyn

I had just commented how surprised I was that the first postcard of the new round had arrived already on Desiree's post below, when I wandered outside and found that mine had too. I literally took in a breath when I picked it up and saw the exquisite watercolour of the hare - the scan again not doing it justice. Beautiful soft, subtle tones, the most delicate detail in the eye and whiskers - and on the other side the sweetest, bright-eyed little robin. I want to frame the hare painting, but don't want to lose the little bird...
Thanks so much Robyn, I'm so happy to have this truly beautiful postcard!

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!

My golden treasure.

Just before New Year, my postman drove all the way to the house to drop me my mail. We are now on good foot...we should be! I bought a calender from him! And to my delight, it was a postcard from Robyn. My Christmas was extended with a whole week.

It was an experiment she did with oil pastels on a gold acrylic ground. The gold doesn't show up so well with the scan so I took some photo's on angles with added light to catch the gold. I wanted you to see the gold acrylic ground.
On Robyn's blog you can see more of this technique she is playing around with(or messing around with, as she calls it...). How does the saying go..."One person's mess is another person's treasure"...?

...the gold reflects beautifully in the dark corner bottom left...

...more golden reflections on the ground and a view on "Giornata mondiale del teatro"...

Thank you for my golden treasure, Robyn!

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

Postcard From Granada

It's such a treat receiving cards from unexpected parts of the world.  Robyn had a recent trip to Granada Spain, and I get to be the lucky recipient of the card painted while she was there!

This is the Alcazaba military area of the Alhambra as viewed from Robyn's rooftop.  Robyn had to climb a steep ladder to get to it.  Given how much I hate ladders and easily suffer vertigo I'm especially grateful! 

I am not sure what time of day this was done but it's bright sky and hot!   Great colours and shadow work and I love all the lushness of the foliage contrasting against the imposing architecture.

Thanks Robyn - it's beautiful!

A ray of Tuscan sunshine!

This beautiful card came from Robyn in Tuscany. I'm afraid my scanner hasn't captured the colours at all well but the stone walls are painted in a range of very delicate pinks and soft browns which seem to radiate with the warmth of the Tuscan sun! I love the shadows playing across the blue/green door and it's all been painted so delicately.

On the back Robyn has written "This is the door to the old convent house we rented when we first arrived in Castiglion Fiorentino. I stop by often because it is now owned by friends but mainly because it holds such great memories of our first year in Italy with an open fire, two dogs and no television!" Isn't that wonderful? Now I want to open the door and go inside!

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. 

A Postcard from (Four Go Painting in) Provence

A little ray of sunshine arrived for me yesterday - not from Italy as you would think coming from Robyn - but from Provence, where she was sharing an artist's holiday that we would all have loved to joined in on with Katherine, Ronell and Sarah. Looking at this, I can just imagine the four of them sitting over... café au lait..? a beautiful beaujolais..? (a bit early for that judging by the blue blue sky perhaps - or perhaps not), gazing out of this window - see another version of it here -  and talking and talking and planning what to paint and how to paint it, in oils, or watercolour, or gouache... It's such a lovely soupçon of their time together and a beautiful, bright souvenir for me to keep and treasure, thank you Robyn, I'm so happy to have a peep through this sunny window!

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!!

Gallery-May postcards

The round-up of our May postcards.

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!

From a Mail Art Master

I have received my postcard from a mail art master - Albrecht Rissler in Heidelberg, Germany. The scans don't do this wonderful gift justice. 24 x 15 cms right out of Albrecht's sketchbook and packed with beauty on both sides. Can you sense that I am delighted?

Albrecht says 'Willows won't win a beauty competition, but for me they are a pleasure to draw.' Well they are a pleasure to study, over and over again, Albrecht. He went on to say 'These sketches were made near the Rhine River where I love going for a walk.'

The card still has a hint of the hairspray Albrecht apologises for using in order to fix the graphite. :) There is so much for a fan to discover on this card - the fact that the artist used a Tombow Roller Ball pen and Karisma Graphite Aquarelle pencil and a drawing of both, plus a tiny value chart. The stamps are an added bonus - just beautiful.

The first breath of Spring from Robyn

The first morning that felt like Spring, Robyn Sinclair

Robyn has sent me a delicious card, catching that early spring light, the coolness and freshness of it.

She said  

' This was the first morning that felt like Spring. I was enjoying the sun on the bright moss on the tree trunks so I sat down in the olive grove and sketched it for you'

Thank you Robyn - I love it!

Olive groves have a special atmosphere and you've caught it, the season, the light, beautifully.

I like the way that the branches break out of the frame of lines and I'm delighted that it survived its journey unscathed as a 'proper' postcard.

The mix of drawing and colour washes also gels beautifully.

Almond blossoms in Tuscany

Today I have the great pleasure to show a beautiful postcard received from Robyn Sinclair (Have dogs will travel), a little watercolor painting in subtle colours and many layers. To find the blooming almond tree on a cold and grey day was a magical moment Robyn tells me on the backside of the card.

I had admired Robyn's little Tuscany studies for a while in the sketchercise group. Now I can say it feels great to own such a nice piece. Thank you Robyn for this special card bringing the first almond blossoms this year!

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!!!