Getting ready

By Sally Pudney on 12th January 2025

I have been assembling some new art materials, ready to make a start on my new painting project. I’m intending to make my first visit to Markshall this week, provided the weather warms up a bit – it was -5 degrees C this morning!

You may remember from my last post that I’m going to be drawing some Pickings – items such as twigs, leaves, fir cones, feathers – which I can pick up from around the grounds. I am going to use Pitt pastel pencils, as I did for the beachcombings that I drew in my Mersea Island project. I have a large range of different colours in these pencils already. I used Daler Rowney pastel paper then, and I’m going to use it again for the drawings in this project.

I bought three pads of pastel paper – Neutral, Warm and Cool. They each had six different shades in the pad.

I wanted to choose shades for the drawings that would not only suit the months, but would also work when I use the drawings for a new tea-towel design, and for a new set of coasters. I initially chose twelve different colours.

I quickly realised that these just looked ‘bitty’ and didn’t sit well together at all! I had a think about the tea-towel design, and realised that the first six colours needed to be repeated in reverse for the bottom six. I also bore in mind that many customers had commented that they liked my newest tea-towel – Essex Fields, in my shop here – better than my Mersea Findings one, because the colours were brighter. They didn’t like the neutral earthy colours as much! So I came up with these as my choice.

January and December – blue

February and November – dark green

March and October – bright green

April and September – orange

May and August – red

June and July – dark cerise

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I also thought about the Flowerings paintings that I will be doing each month. Some of these will be gouache – I think! – but some will be soft pastel. I have quite a big range of Unison Soft Pastels now, but not a huge number of vibrant flower colours. While Jacksons Art had a pastel sale on I thought it was worthwhile buying the Unison Colour Botanical box. Look at the wonderful colours!

I am really looking forward to making a start now on Twelve Months on an Essex Country Estate. My first visit could be as soon as Tuesday – and I will share some photos once I’ve been.


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