Cinque Terre sketch, ink and watercolour

Walking from Romaggiore to Corniglia and suddenly the village appears, climbing the rocks high above the ocean. The sketch only took 3 minutes as the others were waiting for me. The colours were put on waiting at the café for lunch an hour later. The colours are put in from memory and from the photo on my small digital camera. Every time I go out I take with me a small paint box, a sketchbook (a size suitable for my handbag), an ink pen and a small brush containing water.

Fivizzano, watercolour

A sunny Tuesday afternoon sitting next to Frieda, figuring out how to do the lines in the old buildings of Fivizano. We have been sketching at the market in the morning and then had a wonderful lunch overlooking Posara. This is happiness. I painted this on a good paper using my limited pallet of only 9 watercolours. Most important are the shadows, put in with a hint of cobalt violet.

Wild Tiger, watercolour

This tiger can be seen at a Copenhagen Gallery, Kunsthuset, together with other figurative/abstract paintings. I sketched this tiger in the Copenhagen Zoo, but I as I like tigers I often go to different zoos, to sketch and to take photographs to remind me at home of shapes, colours and so on. I concentrate on the eyes, which says so much about the animal, and the I like to go abstract, but you can still see the tiger. For this one I chose to put in some red, to mark the danger of this huge animal.

Cherry blossom, Spring

I love painting flowers and, after painting this cherry blossom, I decided to grow those lovely trees in my own garden, so that I would have them to hand every time the light was right (the light is very important in watercolour). But to be frank, I only have apple trees at the moment, so I still have to visit a friend's garden to paint them.

I do lots of different types of backgrounds for my flowers, I'm often asked how I do this kind of dark background. I use a good quality watercolour paper with lots of Ultra Marine and Burnt Sienna (this is a mix I very often use to get contrast in my watercolours).