Last week I decided to only use (and sketch) teacups from my Royal Albert collection. And as I missed a few days last weekend, I also decided to catch up so that I have one teacup sketch per day in lockdown. (If you missed it, here in Sydney we’re locked down again).

There is a lot going on behind the scenes this month so some of these were very quick sketches that I managed to squeeze into my workday. But even if I don’t have a lot of time, I usually manage to slow down and end up getting ‘in the zone’. This is one of the reasons why I sketch so many tea and coffee cup sketches. The repetitive nature of the subject matter allows me to connect more fully with my painting.

At the moment I’m really experimenting with risky wet-in-wet techniques and my timing has to be perfect to get the effect that I want.  Sometimes it doesn’t quite go to plan but it’s always a fun experience!

I know that some of you would like to see photos of the cups… I’m afraid I’m not very good at doing that!  As I’m so focused on my sketch at the time I usually forget totally to take any photos. But you should be able to google the names and see what they look like.

Monday
Royal Albert 100 years: 1930s Polka Rose and Royal Albert 100 years: 1930s Mint Deco. (Note: Royal Albert changed some of the cups in the 100 years set and naturally, I have both the original cup and the new one!)

Tuesday
Two versions of Royal Albert 100 years: 1970s Poppy

I was trying to do a very quick and loose sketch for the second version.

Wednesday
Royal Albert Moonlight Rose (yay! a different cup and saucer shape!). I didn’t have a lot of time for this one.

Thursday
Royal Albert 100 years set: 1980s Rose Blush – this is a favourite cup to sketch because it’s nice and easy!

Friday
Royal Albert 100 years set: 1910s Duchess – was trying something different for this one and it became a real mess. I left it alone and now can accept it as a crazy experiment!

Saturday
A big day sketching three cups! As I’m aiming to do a teacup for each day of lockdown and I don’t sketch on Sunday, I need to do two on Saturday (or Monday). Because I missed doing one last Saturday as well, I had an extra one to do this week. It feels good to be up to date and to have done 15 different teacup sketches in 15 days!

Royal Albert 100 years: 1990s Hartington Lane

       
Royal Albert 100 years: 1990s Bouquet

Royal Albert: Lady Carlyle

Whoa! That’s a lot of teacups in one blogpost! Next week I’ll be focusing on my T2 collection.

For those of you who get tired of seeing teacup sketches… never fear, I’ve got an architectural lockdown project happening as well. So stay tuned for more about that on Friday.