Blues, turquoises and golds and a lovely English village

This painting is entitled "Golden Hen In The Orchard"

This little painting is entitled "Your Tree Or Mine?"

This is the preliminary watercolour sketch of my hen. Bit of an odd shape I know.

A decorated and stylised bird from my sketchbook

Stained glass window to the Caldicott family. Click photo to enlarge.

Cottage on the village green at Warborough

A village lane in Warborough

I actually put paint to paper this week and did a couple of little watercolours. One is of a golden hen in an orchard - very stylised as is my style. The other one is of two little birds who are having a bit of a confrontation over whose tree it is. Both pictures share more or less the same limited palette of blues, turquoises and golden browns. A lovely combination and one of my favourites. I have also included a tiny little sketchy watercolour of the finished picture. It doesn't really bear much relationship to the finished article but then a sketch doesn't have to. I have often produced a sketch and when I start painting or drawing the finished picture, there are so many changes that it doesn't seem to be related at all. That is the beauty of art though - it is an ongoing process and you never know where inspiration will take you.

I visited some friends over the weekend with my brother and his partner. They took us to a lovely little village called Warborough in Oxfordshire. It was the quintessential English village and utterly delightful. After a lovely meal in the local pub we strolled around the outskirts of the village and visited the parish church. We even spotted a couple of lapwings in the fields trying to distract us from seeing their nest. They had nothing to fear from us though. Because of the recent rains we have had, everything looked beautifully fresh and green. I love this time of the year for that reason. I envied the villagers with their lovely thatched cottages and cricket green but then I realised that there is a price to pay for living in heaven. They are inundated with cars during the summer weekends because the area is so lovely and a great place for walking dogs. I found the place so inspirational that I returned home and started on my little artworks while I was in the mood.

The parish church had some beautiful stained glass windows which are a passion of mine. The quality of the colours in stained glass is much more intense than I have seen in any other media. The one is have posted here is relatively recent and records a local Warborough family. I just love the deep raspberry and turquoises of the robes. Wonderful.

I have also included a very decorative and stylised bird from my sketchbook. I am so into birds at the moment. We are having large numbers of them visiting the birdtable in the garden and the fat balls hanging on the tree stump. It is so lovely to see the young joining in too. My birds don't resemble any of them of course, but I do draw the occasional realistic bird as well which I will post at a later date.