Author: Jane

Today I am going to take you on a journey, just a short journey – a sketching walk around west Penwith. In order to be factually accurate I didn’t do all these sketches in one day, but you could, providing you had a car and plenty of time.

Where is west Penwith you might ask? Does it start in Penzance or Mousehole? Well I am going to start my sketching walk in Lamorna!

Lamorna

Lamorna is a pretty cove, just along from Mousehole but actually not that easy to get to. You need to navigate the windy lanes that prevail around this area, but there is a small car park, albeit with high parking charges. But it was cheap enough for me to pop out and do a quick sketch before moving on.

Porthcurno

Next stop is Porthcurno, where you can visit the spectacular Minack Theatre or walk along the beautiful beach, whilst all the time looking at Logan Rock. I love this area, especially the colour of the sea and sand.

Land’s End

Next stop is Land’s End – but I do have a top tip for this area. Many, many years ago, when I was a young girl Land’s End was a beautiful, unspoilt part of our country. Sadly it is now a major tourist attraction, with all the trappings that go with it. My top tip therefore is to go park up in Sennen Cove and walk along the coastline to Land’s End – then you can experience the unspoilt scenery from my youth.

Sennen

On the way back from your walk to Land’s End, you get a marvellous view of Sennen Cove and Whitesand Bay.

The Bay, with its beautiful white sandy beach that stretches around to my next stop.

Cape Cornwall

Cape Cornwall – a lovely little, quiet spot where fishermand still venture out in their small boats. There is a National Trust car park and a perfect spot in on a sunny day all year round.

Ancient Cornwall

Along the coast a little further is The Crowns at Botallack Mines. I do love this spot, with the mines clinging precariously to the cliffs. You can walk down and explore the higher engine house mine, which is easily accessible, but I wouldn’t try and venture to the lower engine house as the path has eroded, making it quite dangerous.

Lanyon Quoit

Now whilst you could carry on along the coast to St Ives, I am going to go back to Penzance on the Madron road so that I can pass Lanyon Quoit. These ancient stones dot the landscape in West Penwith but Lanyon Quoit is the most accessible from the road. These truly is Cornwall’s historic past dating back many, many centuries and well worth a visit.

I hope you enjoyed my little trip around West Penwith, and its beautiful, unspoilt landscape that I just love to paint.

As you look through my website you will see that I enjoy using Pen and Ink in Watercolour Paintings.

This started when I was at school where I created drawings using a very slow technique of drawing little dots in pen to draw my image.

I had never really thought about using pen and ink in my watercolours but my art tutor held several classes to teach us this technique. I enjoyed getting out my old nibs and ink but rather than using my dotted technique she encouraged me to draw in one movement, as this gives a looser feel.

Initially you sketch in pencil, before then drawing in the lines in a freehand style.

Once all the drawing is complete, the pencil is erased and you can start painting. The painting then doesn’t need to fall within the lines, this keeps the loose feeling and to me gives it a greater vibrancy.

I do love this technique and I now use it when I am painting architecture, it enables me to ensure I have the accuracy for the buildings. I also use it for sketching whilst out and about, although then I use drawing pens. When I am out and about quite often time is limited and doing a quick drawing can capture the scene, and then I can quickly add colour to give it life.

However I have also gone back to drawing with dots!

I found it very relaxing to draw using this dotted technique and find it works very well for tiny images that I then convert into greeting cards.

Generally I tend to be sat watching TV and I can do these little drawings, put them to one side8 and then later on, I can sit and relax in my studio and add the colour!

They seem popular and I hope you like them.