This Saturday a large flotilla left from Greenock to head to Glasgow for the Commonwealth games.

I was over by Milngavie last weekend doing some life drawing in a treehouse overlooking a loch, one of the best places I’ve ever drawn.

Afterwards we went swimming in the loch. It was surprisingly warm as there are not streams going in and out of the water so if its a sunny day the loch just heats up, heaven.

Always good to stop by Riverhill Courtyard whenever I’m in Helensburgh.

A pleasant time drawing this view from the church.

One of my favourite buildings in Glasgow. I’ve got a few more paintings of this area and hopefully planning to do a picture of the view from the top of the building.

I’ve been sent some samples of the new QoR Watercolours to try out. They are a new concept in watercolours that aim to try and shorten that distance from when how a watercolour looks when its being painted to when it dries. Its been well known that as watercolour dries your colours get slightly muted, because of this I tend to overcompensate and take the change into consideration while i’m painting.

First of all the paint comes in tubes, I’m not sure if it comes in pans at all. Usually watercolour paint that comes in tubes is quite thick in texture, here the QoR paints are more runny. Whenever I use watercolour in tubes I tend to fill empty pans up and wait for them to dry. These are obviously geared to using straight from the tube a much more direct and spontaneous way of working.

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Using pastel chalk (sanguine) and watercolour – A1 cold pressed watercolour paper.

I converted an A4 watercolour moleskine to a square shape. I’ve been finding the 5.5 x 8.5inc size a bit small and at the same time finding the A4 a bit too big and unwieldy when I’m out an about. So I settled on converting this one to a more manageable square size.

Next time around I might try and do a how to guide, though its fairly easy. I used a ruler to get a nice torn edge rather than cutting them. With the cover, you just need to peel the faux leather back then cut the cardboard then overlap it (bottom left)

Then just reattach the band and inside pocket. You need to reduce the size of the pocket so it fits well.