Month / June 2026

by Leonie Andrews

Getting a bit ‘meta’ (no not the company)

I’m in the process of making myself some new sketchbooks, playing around with different types of paper and formats.

My inside covers are from an old atlas

Some of the paper I’m recovering from long abandoned sketch pads, so not everything is a standard size. As a result I’m making some tiny sketchbooks from the leftovers.

A tiny soft cover book

So far I’ve made seven of these. One is for a friend and I’m thinking of randomly giving the others away when I’m out sketching.

Some of my little sketchbooks

Of course I also needed a subject to sketch for our Sunday Zoom session. You can guess what I used as my subject.

Yesterday’s sketch

by Leonie Andrews

Pumpkin

It’s not possible to ignore the sculptural shapes of the pumpkins we harvested the other day, so of course one has made it into my latest drawing.

Some late finds

I started this drawing off with a smear of Buff Titanium watercolour paint as the base for my shape and to pick up the highlight colour for the subsequent drawing.

Watercolour underpainting

The pencils came next. This fruit had such an indeterminate colour, leaning towards green, but with undeniable elements of grey and blue. I was concerned about overdoing the colours.

Sitting on my grandmother’s breadboard.

Using the breadboard as the base for the pumpkin allowed me to flip between the two parts of the drawing while thinking through which colours I would use next.

The final drawing

I could have pushed the colour a bit more, but I’m also happy that I stopped where I did.

by Leonie Andrews

More onions

There’s something satisfying about making a series of drawings, or any form of art really.

Over the past three weeks I’ve drawn this onion three times. All have been drawn using colour pencils and some with watercolour pencil.

My first one I felt was rather too solid. It looked like it had a hard shell, not papery skin.

First attempt

I tried again the following week with a different angle and a better outcome. I also thought that the placement of the saucer was stronger.

No. 2 a bit more like the onion
skin I wanted to capture

The latest version I drew using both watercolour and standard coloured pencils. I feel that the watercolour pencil gave more translucency to the skin than I achieved previously.

The 3rd version with more watercolour pencils

It has recently been mentioned to me that the onion now needs to be returned to the pantry for eating.