Tag: Outer Hebrides

Sketch and Sail – May 2025 -Hebrides

I’m thrilled to be one of the tutors on the Lady of Avenel “Sketch and Sail” adventure. I have just returned from the May 2025 voyage in the Scottish western isles.

Postcards from Sketch and Sail May 2025

We travelled over 100 miles, much of it under sail. Fellow artist Alice Angus and I delivered sketching workshops to a companionable group of participants, and everyone made lots of sketches. Some people also steered the boat, managed the sails, swam on the sandy beaches, and a few brave participants went up the mast.

If you would like to join us on a future trip, there is another date in August – and two more voyages are planned for 2026. See this link for more information or contact me.

Here are a few of the many photographs from the May 2025 trip:

Swimming at Sandray
A postcard of distant islands
Art workshop on the foredeck
The sails and a crew member
Rainbow near Canna
Crew member furling the sail
Jane and Alice preparing for an art workshop in the saloon
Nathalie sketching on the foredeck
Shore party
action shots: Lady of Avenel May 2025 (photo credits: janesketching and Natalie)

Here are some of my sketches from the trip.

I took an A5 sketchbook from JP Purcell, and sometimes sketched the landscape view across two pages:

A quick sketch from the train north
The impressive cliffs and stacks of Canna
A quiet anchorage at Canna
From the sandy beach on Sandray

The beach at Sandray was a great sketching location. Here is a photo of my sketching spot.

Here is one of the drawings I made here:

There was a stream running down the beach.

The stream on the beach, sketch made using seaweed and sea water.

The other sketchbook I took was a small A6 toned watercolour book made by Hahnemühle.

The toned sketchbook
Tony looking at the Outer Hebrides
A sketch of the ship, looking towards the prow.

On the way back to London I had a few hours walking and sketching in Glasgow – I’ll put those sketches in another post.

Meanwhile, here is a sketchbook flick-through so you can see the whole week in seven seconds of silent video. [videos might not play properly on mobiles or emails – please try the web-based version]

Sketchbook flick-through.

Materials:

My main sketchbook was 300gsm watercolour paper, A5, from JP Purcell in Southwark, London. The bird sticker on the front is my design, printed by Vistaprint.

A well-used sketchbook: A5 watercolour paper, from JP Purcell.

I also used a small toned sketchbook from Hahnemühle.

Here is my colour palette, all traditional watercolours:

Colours used this week: all Daniel Smith except the Ultramarine Blue which is Schmincke Horadam

Here are the brushes I use. Mostly I used the large flat brush, which is from Rosemary Brushes. It is about an inch across.

Any other questions? If you’re interested in the Sketch and Sail adventure in August, or next year, do get in touch.

Outer Hebrides 2017

I took my sketching things on a swimming expedition to the Outer Hebrides with Swimtrek. We were on the wonderful Lady of Avenel 102ft square rigged brigantine.

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We started in Oban.IMG_1166

It was raining when I drew this picture, as you can see from the way the pen has drifted a bit, round the chimneys. I coloured it inside the café called “Kranks”.

There was a lot of weather.

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I drew pictures while balancing on the quarterdeck. The picture below was painted with sea water.

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Here is a drawing of the beach at Vatersay. We swam to this beach, and surfed in the waves on the other side. The small dots on the beach are cows.

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Here is an attempt to draw the sails.

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For more drawings of this expedition please see the “Outer Hebrides 2017” gallery.

For drawings from last year’s trip please see the “Outer Hebrides 2016” gallery.