a selection of sketches from a week in Cornwall in September, spent exploring the moors, coast, ancient Bronze Age remains and the other-worldliness of the abandoned tin and copper mines in the Penwith area.

Towards Rosewall Hill, Cornwall.

These sketches were made on the spot, (in varied weather) in my current favourite sketchbook – a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook. The paper weight is robust enough to stand up to the deluge of water I usually flood each page with and I prefer the landscape format over the A5/A6 sizes sketchpads and books tend to come in.

Apart from my usual use of wet-in-wet watercolours and pencil, I was trying out the Derwent Inktense blocks which I’ve recently discovered; I love their immediacy of colour, their smudgy intensity, especially in the darker colours, like the plummy colour shown in the sketch above.

Mine stack at Levant, Cornwall.

Verdigris leaching from cliff, Levant Mine.   

The colours of the earth around these mines where the ores carpet the surface, and the copper verdigris leaches from the sea cliffs below the mines, have to be seen to be believed! It looks just like a giant has flung pots of paint around with abandon.

Mine stack, Levant Mine.

Rubble & ore, Levant Mine.

There is enough visual inspiration in this industrial landscape to warrant returning and spending much longer gathering material for a whole series of work. I’d love to do just that.

Rock formation, Levant.

Men an Tol, near Morvah

Rainclouds over Porthmeor bay, St Ives, Cornwall.