These are the pencils and crayons I bought from Fred Aldous (the fantastic art shop in Manchester, which we said goodbye to, for now, because our daughter is moving). Of course I tried them out immediately afterwards.
Tue-25-Aug-2026
Here is a sketch of the new paper I bought from my favourite shops in the UK. I’ve already started using the Cass art paper (300gsm cold press not)…but so far I don’t think I’ll be trying it again.
Sat-22-Aug-2026
These are the paints that I bought in the UK from Jackson’s in Hove and Cass Art in Brighton. The colours (from the left) are Aureoline (Rosa), Sap Green (Cass), undersea green (Daniel Smith), Opera pink (DS) and Lemon Yellow (Cass). From the label I thought the Aureoline was going to be browner…turns out it is just another yellow. I should have googled it beforehand.
Fri-21-Aug-2026
After my last sketch I had a gap of two days in sketching. When we drove down from Manchester via Oxford to Hove again, we had a road accident – a big lorry drove in to us on the motorway. Thankfully we were not hurt (and neither was the lorry driver), but the hire car was damaged, which so far has cost us a lot of money. We also spent some time meeting friends and helping put stuff into storage. When I had time I sketched these Crocks which belong to our eldest daughter…very cool…or very embarrassing, depending on your perspective!
Sun-9-Aug-2026
This is the last sketch I did before we left the Philippines for our holiday trip to the UK and Montenegro. I spent a lot of the day packing and was left with this pile of things to try and cram into my hand-carry (which has to be small so that it can fit under a seat on our EasyJet leg to Montenegro). This is also the beginning of a new sketchbook made using CassArt smooth watercolour paper.
Sat-18-Jul-2026
Here is a sketch of something random from the fridge – fresh ginger. It is inexpensive and plentiful in the Philippines and we always have some. Apart from using it in cooking, I like to have small slices crushed, along with honey and calamansi juice, in a hot drink.
Tue-14-Jul-2026
Somehow I still had the energy to sketch this on the day I got back to the Philippines. As soon as I arrived we went straight to the mall and I picked up my new glasses and bought this too – as my old blue one finally gave up (with the lid not tightening up anymore).
Sat-11-Jul-2026
My daughter suggested sketching part of our leftover dinner…so I thought, why not? This went along with soft wholewheat tortillas (which I always pronounce incorrectly), and kidney beans cooked with tofu – yummy!
Sun-5-Jul-2026
Mangosteens are tropical evergreen trees native to Southeast Asia which produce this delicious sweet and juicy segmented fruit with a hard purple rind. The fruit is supposed to have strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. I often see ads for the MX3 food supplement which is made from the whole fruit, including the rind…apparently some studies have shown that it has joint pain benefits, but I just like to eat the fruit!
Thu-2-Jul-2026