Sketch booking

Drawing in a sketchbook is something I used to love, well I still love it but I don't do it so much. I love the book quality. In Spain they mostly do ring bound sketchbooks, which don't really do it for me. I like feeling like I've made my own book. Some of my best drawings have been done in sketchbooks. Is it that feeling of freedom, that feeling that this piece isn't and doesn't need to be definitive? I think so. I get so drunk on images by other people that I get a kind of art hang over and then I can't make my own stuff.

On Saturday I went out for a meal with some artists from my studio building. It was so much fun. They talked a bit about how they work. The process of letting go of your surroundings and focusing on your work. I used to do this so easily but it's been a while since I've been able to immerse myself so completely. But now I know that once I've managed to relax and enjoy what I'm doing art will be a different thing for. Now it's just another stick to hit myself with.

List of art related worries:

1. I felt and sometimes feel like I should have gone to do a post grad in some posh art school.
2. I feel limited in terms of concepts and ideas, that is, limited by fear of judgement and disapproval.
3. I don't believe in myself.

List of positive art related stuff:

1. I draw well.
2. I paint well with watercolour.
3. I take good photos.
4. I have a sense of humour which comes out in the work I do... sometimes.

Returning to the sketchbook world, the world inside your sketchbook where you draw anything and you write strange ideas and stories. The manifestation of your creative interior.
So I just found this website where people do stuff like this... sketchbook sharing type stuff. I'm excited... dear Universe please can I have the Internet in my studio even though Telefonica say it's not possible???

Toy Museum, Sintra, Portugal

The most enjoyable part of our September trip to Portugal, for me, was the Toy museum in Sintra. Look at these dolly shoes in a dolly trunk.


I love dolly things!

El Congost de Mont Rebei

This is a watercolour of a wonderful place about an hour or so from Lleida, when we went in the spring it was full of small purple flowers, which the land seem purply and beautiful.

Doggie and cabbage

Today I'm introducing you to a doggie from my boyfriend's village. He is from Maials in Catalonia, where they make olive oil and cultivate almonds and hanging tomatoes. This doggie is a pesky chap, he was fidgeting around infront of me one day and seemed extremely fertive. So I took his photo and drew a picture of him.

My next picture for today is, quite obviously, a cabbage. Yes I love vegetables, they're beautiful. On saturday mornings there's a farmers' market here in Lleida where people from villages and fruit wholesalers (I think) come and sell their produce. It's a lot of fun, and always full of interesting looking specimens (people and vegetables alike). The last time I went with my Italian friend Francesca, we cycled down there on our bikes and had a lovely long chatty breakfast. Then I bought this enormous cabbage. First I painted it with a background because I'd just been to an amazing Paula Rego exhibition in Madrid and I wanted to pack my pictures with information, like she does. However what works for her doesn't necessarily work for a sad copycat like me :-(

So below I've cut out the background and the cabbage seems to sing out with all its cabbagyness!!!

Snail Story

My friend Ingrid is having one of her stories published after winning a competition. And she's asked me to do the front cover illustration. I'm a bit scared because... well I still lack self confidence in what I do and for this reason I tend to try and make my work more like someone else's. This never works, it always looks bad and feels false. Recently I went through all my work from this year and tried to find the most spontaneous sketches, the work that really reflected me and my personality. In this entry I'm including another drawing from the house portrait series. I did these drawing using watercolour, it was a total experiment as I'd never really used water colour before then. I think these drawings are really honest and that's why I like them.

Day 1

Hello... this is my first Blog, I'm trying it out, see how it goes. I'm shaking a bit as I write this, you see I've been thinking about it and not doing it for ages now. And finally my own misery at being so useless has moved me to do something about it. So here I am Judy. Starting my blog.

I want to enjoy drawing again like I used to... so I'm gonna do some work and put on here and hopefully that will give me the impetus i need to get going with my drawing again.





This is a drawing I did a while ago of my bedroom (well, the place where I sleep) at my parents house in London. I don't exactly have my own room there now, which is fair enough really as I haven't lived there for four years. I was making a collection of portraits of our house for my mum and dad's birthdays.