Every Day in May: EDIM 12-16

May 16, 2015 | 5 Comments


EDiM 16 Ingredients for a favourite recipe
I WAS going to draw the ingredients for pumpkin scones (not that I ever allow myself to bake any) but I hadn’t planned ahead and omitted to buy a pumpkin this week. So because I feeling very uncreative after a busy week today, I decided on the essential ingredients (or elements!) required for a piping hot good cuppa. The important part here is the 3 means for keeping the pot warm – a USB cup warmer, a fitted tea-cosy AND recently re-discovered an over the top tea cosy (lovely gift from Cathy Gatland from South Africa that she gave me when I met her in Lisbon in 2011). I can tell you that the steam rises when I pour my second cup – now that is special!

BTW, I have never drawn my special Earl Grey tea tin before… it is one of those objects that are very hard to paint in watercolour (black background) so this is a historic occasion.
BTW2- I just discovered that there was a pumpkin in the garden ready to use!

EDIM15 Something you SHOULD throw away
I made sure my dad saved this wonderfully tacky chandelier from the family home before throwing it out. It has been sitting in a corner of my studio waiting to be drawn for months now. It was hard work sketching this as I was holding it in the air with my right hand (awkward to hold still and heavy!) but I loved all the memories it brought back of my tall brothers (and cousins) walking into it all the time. The height of the living room was not at all suitable for this thing dangling from the ceiling! Now that it is sketched, can I throw it out? Hmm, not quite, I want to sketch it again!

PS. After seeing this posted online, I think I can throw it out! I feel quite an emotional attachment to this sketch now which means the original can go!


EDiM 14 Something you use everyday
I have decided to go for whatever subject matter I want to draw regardless of how cliched it is for me to do it. So my white joy it was. Also a new Lamy Nexx pen from Larrypost!

[where is the sketch?]

EDiM13 The last thing you bought
I had a few ‘why did I bother days’ when I left it too late in the day and rushed the sketch…this day was one of those occasions and my heart wasn’t in it at all! If I have time I will re-do this sketch and do a separate post about a few thoughts I had at the time.



EDiM12 Some stairs
I was out all day at meetings and didn’t look at the topic for the day till I was home and as there are no stairs at my place… I cheated. Was reading a book about Palladio that night and wanted to write a few notes…ended up doing a few sketches – one of those just happened to include some stairs!

5 Comments

  • Deborah says:

    Liz I love the chandelier. And I know just what you mean about feeling an emotional attachment to a sketch. (It means something has happened between you and the object and the memory and I'm not at all sure what!) Can I ask you about how you use paint spatter? I'm interested how you manage it the way you do – and also what you do to control it when you're sketching at a café table or somewhere you can't risk getting ink or paint all over everywhere? !!

  • Liz Steel says:

    exactly – something happens between you and the object!
    Splattering – good question, I tap my brush with my finger and can control it enough that it rarely splashes off the page. Took me a while to have this control though.

  • Deborah says:

    Thanks – that's definitely something I need to practise!

  • Patricia Gerty says:

    I have been working my way through your posts in Pinterest and enjoying very much. I am a wannabe painter etc but never really settled down to it. Throwing a problem into the mix – I am disabled and a large lady. I go out on a disabled scooter which doesn’t have provision for a basket at the front just tiddly metal basket by my knees. To date I now have a small tool bag with plastic base to go between my feet for things. I have the gear but still working out if I can possibly get out, now COVID has eased, and do some urban type stuff. I live in bungalow country in East Sussex between the clifftop and the Downs. I guess I’m just scared. Any ideas am I going in the right direction?

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