Tom reclining

I think I’ve really caught Tom in this one. He said he wanted me to make sure that my readers knew that there’s a pocket at the front of his top and his hand is not down his trousers!
380mm x 190mm pen and ink

Three waiting men

Drawn while I waited in the car for Tom.
200mm x 150mm pen and watercolour

The only bit that stayed still

After yet two more wildly unsuccessful attempts to capture my constantly moving daughter, I settled for drawing the one bit that was relatively still.
120mm x 130mm pen and ink

Hugo before the haircut!

Robin looks a lot more cheerful than he feels, having discovered that the final day of the Tour de France was not recorded for viewing after a day out. Hugo playing with his long hair in the background. The sea cadets have said it needs cutting so a last chance to fiddle with it. Oh and spot the mistake!
380mm x 195mm pen and ink

Adding colour to some old drawings

Robin reading

350mm x 250mm pencil on Arches HP paper

Vest and pants

A quickie. I love the marks at the backs of his knees and the soft groove down the back of his neck. Even better when he’s fast asleep.
100mm x 100mm pen and ink

Rainy clouds

I’ve been so busy that I’ve only just found time to upload these sketches I made last week at the height of our dreadful weather. I like that colour combination of pale gold wheat and blue-grey rain clouds. I love how nature throws out beautiful combinations that you’d never readily think of using as a colour scheme for your living room.

Mug of tea

Flo, drinking Earl Grey tea.
375mm x 190mm pen and ink in sketchbook

Flo and Hugo

Still lots of work. Why does everything arrive at once?
375mm x 190mm pen and ink

Flo exercising

Tons of day-job work on so it’s been difficult to fit in drawing, scanning and posting.
190mm x 190mm pen and ink

Watching funny videos

380mm x 195mm pen and ink

Ten seconds and then he moved

Robin dropped off at the family party to celebrate my Dad joining the Catholic church. However as soon as I wielded my pen he woke up and decided it was time to go home.

65mm x 75mm pen and ink

Hugo at the cinema

I took Hugo to see the latest Harry Potter film. It was good to spend time with just one child.
176mm x 176mm pen and ink in sketchbook

Tom laughing

Another late night drawing. Tom was watching re-runs of ‘Smack the Pony’ – very funny – I didn’t realise how old the programme was. Flo was out at a Harry Potter party – her friend’s mother is a bookseller so they all stayed up ’till midnight to get their copy of the new book.
380mm x 195mm pen and ink

Self portrait in convex mirror

Another last thing at night drawing. To see the carving on the sides of that big old ugly bed, look here. And to see the room the other way round look here.

380mm x 195mm pen and ink in sketchbook

Asleep in bed

I just managed to draw before midnight last night. We seem to have a sleeping people thing going on at the moment on this blog.
320mm x 125mm brushpen in lumpy sketchbook

Asleep on the settee

Poor little chap, his hair is stuck to his head with sweat after the misery of constantly vomiting into a bowl and he’s fast asleep with exhaustion. But my goodness how quickly he recovered. He woke up at about one o’clock, refreshed and ready to eat a bowl of cheerios.
290mm x 230mm pastel on sennelier paper

The canoer

275mm x 210mm pencil in sketchbook

Hospital waiting room

I noticed that the furniture was blue and all the pictures on the walls were seascapes. I can just see the interior designer ‘Now here we have our Shades of blue collection – we particularly recommend this range for hospital waiting rooms and airport departure lounges – very good for those of a nervous disposition’.

200mm x 145mm pen and ink in sketchbook

Tom drawing me

It doesn’t look anything like him but he moved so much this was the best I could manage
125mm x 140mm pencil in sketchbook

Man asleep on the train

280mm x 210mm pencil in sketchbook

Gap in the hedge

200mm x 145mm ink and watercolour

Xavier moving

200mm x 130mm pen and ink

Xavier with flowers and last day at Busy Bees

Today was Xavier’s last day at Busy Bees morning nursery. I’m not normally sentimental about children moving onto the next stage. My usual heartless reaction is delight that they’ll be spending more hours at school and that I’ll be able to fit the day job into those hours without paying too much for childcare. However I did feel close to tears when I picked him up. The staff have been so wonderful over the past two years – I shall so miss their welcoming faces in the mornings. I was given a lovely book, recording Xavier’s last two years – full of observations about his development and photos of his days at the nursery. I shall treasure it forever.

By the way I’m sorry I haven’t been replying to comments. I’ve been feeling really under the weather for some time and can only just about manage my quick sketch a day. Anyway hopefully I’ll be feeling better soon.
295mm x 210mm pen and ink

Tom and Flo

295mm x 210mm pen and ink

Sprawled

Hugo trying to finish the last Harry Potter book before the next one comes out. And I’ll have you know that courtesy of my dear bibliophile friend Jenny, my kids were reading (and raving about) the first Harry Potter book well before anyone had heard of him.
Robin? – he’s probably buying something big and bulky on e-Bay.
210mm x 250mm

Art homework

This is why I couldn’t scan and post any drawings for a day!
420mm x 297mm brushpen and ink

Bath-time and using photography

This was quickly drawn from life. The toy sailing boat in the background is what Robin uses to teach Xavier the parts of a boat. He can identify rigging, mast, forestay, boom, keel, mainsail, jib, cockpit, bow and stern. Pretty impressive for a four year old, don’t you think?
It is such a a struggle trying to capture a moving subject matter. And sometimes it really is worth taking advantage of the moments that only photography can catch.
To see a more delightful picture of the same subject matter (using photographic reference), look here.
Since the older picture we have had a sparkling new tiled white bathroom installed. Worth every penny – the depression I felt as I entered the mouldy damp carpeted dusty pink bathroom gone forever.

175mm x 190mm pen and ink

Purple cornflowers

The woodland park at lunch time. Another lovely sunny day.
295mm x 115mm watercolour in lumpy sketchbook

Watching ‘It Happened One Night’

Oh my impatient daughter. She is the most difficult member of the family to draw. She tuts and sighs and moves, and then gets quite cross with me. And I would so love to capture her sweet face before she leaves home. I did one terrible drawing of her first this evening and as this quick second attempt is marginally better, it will have to be the family portrait for today.
210mm x 210mm pencil

Ranks of clouds

A walk up to the bluebell wood with Xavier and a bit of a struggle attempting watercolour as Xavier rocked the pushchair (my painting table) when he became bored of playing with all the toys he’d brought with him. At last we seem to have better weather than the last couple of weeks. The participants in the Tour de France and Wimbledon will be grateful for that.
290mm x 215mm watercolour on Arches HP

Xavier asleep

It was after nine o’ clock in the evening and everyone apart from Hugo and Xavier were out. So having done Hugo yesterday, I crept into Xavier’s bedroom, pulled back the curtains and drew him in the fading light. The black lump next to his arm is ‘Matoki’ the monkey, one of his bed-time toys. Have a look at this picture to see what Flo looked like when she was a baby.

290mm x 210mm pencil on Arches HP paper

Hugo absorbed (with added colour)

205mm x 130mm pen, ink and watercolour

Hugo absorbed

Whew what a relief I managed to get my VAT return done using my newly acquired accounts software package. I can’t believe that the manufacturers didn't point out in the documentation that there were patches that needed downloading to fix bleedin’ obvious computational faults in the software.
So after that we took Xavier and a friend to see Little Howard (the children’s show not the rude adult version). A very, very entertaining show, but poor Big Howard (who works with little Howard, an animated character) had major technical problems with the two completely essential computers that are little Howard’s stage. This is obviously a hugely original show but when Big Howard dies I think he’ll have ‘Hatfield’ carved on his heart, because if a thing could go wrong, it went wrong today.
The drawing is Hugo watching ’My name is Earl’.
205mm x 130mm pen and ink

Self portrait without glasses

The lovely, talented and wise Katherine of ‘Making a Mark’ suggested I try doing a self portrait without my glasses. I don’t know whether she realised that my prescription is almost -8 in both eyes when she made the suggestion, but this is the result. I did it sitting on my white bed in my white pajamas last thing at night
120mm x 290mm watercolour in lumpy sketchbook

View from Jersey Farm

This was a couple of hours ago – and now it’s raining and my car is the other side of the park. Oh well at least we’re getting great clouds.
180mm x 125mm watercolour.

Dog with dinosaur and shoe

210mm x 130mm brush pen with watercolour on cartridge

Holding on grimly

Ever since a holiday four years ago where he smashed his two front teeth, visiting the dentist is a regular part of Hugo’s life. Despite the fact that we have a lovely dentist, the original trauma makes Hugo a bit apprehensive, though he’s very brave and uncomplaining.
140mm x 190mm sepia pen in back of diary

Monkey nut feast

Robin and the boys have a passion for monkey nuts. I don’t get it – they’re just peanuts in their natural packaging, but I love watching their delight in breaking open the shells and finding the nuts inside – even if I’m less than delighted by the shards and flakes of nuts over the table and floor.
290mm x 200mm pen and ink in sketchbook

Four little paintings

245mm x 170mm watercolour



250mm x 180mm watercolour



175mm x 120mm watercolour



175mm x 122mm ink and watercolour