Sketching in Iceland

Joel and I recently rented a campervan and toured around the Westfjords and a bit of the north of Iceland. We had a fun trip, but the weather was definitely not conducive to plein air sketching (rain and gale-force winds) but we managed to get four paintings in regardless.

Prints are available in my Etsy shop

Dorset and the Jurassic Coast – plein air sketching

Joel and I finally had the chance to go back to one of our favourite destinations: England! We spent two weeks there in total, the first 5 days in London and the next 10 days touring the New Forest then heading into Dorset, the Jurassic Coast and ending up in Lyme Regis. We were excited to get back into plein air sketching again (it’s always more fun when you’re on a trip).

We had an absolutely amazing time! We had two weeks of sun and beautiful spring weather. It did us a world of good 🙂

Prints are available to purchase in my Etsy shop.

Corfe Castle view from the village of Corfe.
Corfe Castle
Easily our most ambitious subject; the Helter Skelter in Weymouth.
Working on the Helter Skelter sketch.
Thomas Hardy’s Cottage.
Joel and I at Thomas Hardy’s cottage.
view of Lyme Regis.
Beautiful day for sketching in Lyme Regis.
On our way back to London, we stopped in at Monticute House with its “wibbly wobbley” hedges.
Another view of Elizabethean mansion Monticute House.
And of course, a trip to England is incomplete without the requisite afternoon tea, this one at the Dalloway Terrace in London.

Cantons de L’Est sketches

The pandemic ruined our international travel plans for 2020, but Joel and I were determined to actually go somewhere because we needed a vacation really badly. So we decided to go on a road trip to les Cantons de L’est region in Québec (also known en anglais as the Eastern Townships). We had a lovely time: did some plein-air painting, ate a lot of great food, visited several breweries, went antiquing, went to Foresta Lumina (check it out, it’s so cool) and generally had a great time.

Travel Sketches from Holland

Joel and I have spent the last 3 weeks touring the Netherlands sketching, painting and sightseeing. There is a lot to see. The Dutch and Flemish Old Masters are probably some of my favourites in art history. We were fortunate to see famous paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer and van Gogh, as well as lesser known painters (but equally amazing, in my opinion) Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens, Jan Brueghel, Hans Holbein and originals by illustrators Rien Poortvliet (more on this in another post), Jan Voerman Jr. and Anton Pieck. Joel and I are saturated with art history and I can honestly report: it is a good thing.

The weather was fantastic for plein air sketching and so Joel and I did a fair bit of it on this trip. We even painted a straight-up landscape, which is something we normally don’t do. I was very distracted by ducks and geese while sketching on this trip. There are tons of them because of the canals everywhere and they would often come really close and quack at you!

Most of these sketches are available as prints in my shop.