Bed legs watercolour sketches

I’m not sure why, but I’m currently feeling more pressed for time to spend watercolour painting than for a long time. It would seem that at the height of lockdown, when many others were baking and catching up on long overdue DIY jobs, I spent more time painting than ever before.

Now, as life is returning to a pre – albeit adjusted – pandemic normality, I find myself besieged with DIY chores and precious little time for painting!

The best I can manage at the moment is to keep plugging away in the sketchbook! Here’s a few images of one of this week’s efforts:

And, because it makes them look more acceptable than might otherwise be the case, here’s a few more recent sketches with a mount balanced on them:

The city scenes were all based on ‘second hand’ references. The sky view came from a dolphin spotting boat trip that we took on Saturday evening out of Brighton Marina.

We didn’t see any dolphins but we did experience a wonderful sunset, and it was great to see my hometown from such a different perspective.

Bed legs

I’m only posting this to evidence what I’ve been doing instead of painting!

After years of being treated as trampoline by my daughter, the fashionable but ultimately flawed splayed legs of our bed finally gave way! After propping one corner up on a pile of books, the time had come to try to repair it or buy a new one, something for which I had neither the appetite nor the budget!

This chore had been on my mind for a week or so and, in readiness, I’d already scavenged some oak from some discarded furniture that I’d found on the street! With a little bit of thinking, planning and measuring, and a considerable amount of sawing, planing, sanding, drilling and lacquering…. hey presto, a new set of stable and secure chamfred bed legs:

Now that I’m able to sleep safely again, I’m hopeful that I may also be able to paint freely again! I think the next lot of DIY and household chores can keep a while – it’s not as if they’ll be going anywhere.