(Because of the way different screens are calibrated these images may not appear quite as they are in real life)

Comments on sketchbooks acrylics mixed media oils drawings

Rosie Britton

Sketches by Rosie Britton
(Click on image to see painting. To return to this page, click above the painting)

Few things give me as much pleasure in life as my sketchbooks. With them, I can step out lightly with nothing but a small 'bum bag' with a little sketch pad, a few pencils, pens, a rubber, sharpener, and my little digital camera.

On my return home my sketches not only inspire my paintings, but also, when the light has gone and I can no longer paint, I relive happy hours as I play with the drawings and photos to make cards and diary accounts, and recently I decided to put a few of them on my web site.

I draw partly because this end result gives me such enjoyment, but even more because it is the best way I know of internalizing what I see and experience. I will spend hours in front of a small piece of intricate plaster work or wrought iron, trying to understand and record it, not too concerned about the quality of the outcome and therefore free from stress and able to concentrate on what I am looking at rather than on my page.

At other times my sketches will be far more a gathering of impressions and enjoyment of atmosphere than of information, as with these of the surprisingly misty coast at Essaouira.

Because of the style in which I paint I don't really 'need' the kind of literal information that my drawings often seek to glean. I know that if it should ever surface in a painting it will probably just be suggested with a few simple marks, as in the detail of the painting below. Click on it to see better.

The time I have spent in careful study or quick sketch has made things my own, and fed my imagination, and that to me is what this kind of drawing is all about.

Comments on sketchbooks acrylics mixed media oils drawings

Rosie Britton

To find out about staying at Gray's Farmhouse B&B, where I have my Dorset studio, click below

Site Updated November 4, 2007