There are a lot of Hams around here. I know from my History GCSE it probably means ‘clearing by a river’ and all these are by the River Thames. First one is fountain pen drawing of Ham House through the fence and it’s just a cheap way of drawing the statue in situ. I’m not paying silly money just to draw Old Father Thames who I have drawn before. I painted HamHouse years ago in a watercolour I’m not sure I posted, and I just freaked out over all those windows and got it very wrong.
The confidence and risk-taking in my drawing compared to then is very visible. I thought I could not draw buildings…in fact there are sketches I’ve not posted because I was so unhappy with the buildings in them. I’m still not exactly architecturally exact, but it’s a world of difference in two years….And I am still challenging myself with tricky subjects.
Another subject I’ve covered before are rope swings and in this part of Ham Lands there is a really big rope swing, which makes me wonder how the rope was tied high up there! Also there was graffiti on the trees, something I am also fascinated with. Kids came along and started playing on this when I was drawing this, which afterwards must’ve seemed a little strange to those passing by…
Painting at Garrick’s Temple with Little Boxie #1, etchr sketchbook and Escoda Versatil 8 travel brush 
Garrick’s Temple #2 – fountain pen sketch, A4 etchr sketchbook.
I don’t know if David Garrick was a ham, he certainly was an actor who built a villa and temple in Hampton. I am revisiting a lot of older places to see how I have developed and I painted Garrick’s Temple in early 2019. Back then I was using my W&N Field Box and the terrible paper from The Works which is probably mostly glue. The difference here is better paper – the etchr A4 sketchbook but only using a limited colour range – the ‘little boxies’ mentioned before, here I am using two of them here because of the mixing brown chore. You can see one of them in the picture above.
Certainly it’s duller than the previous piece, but I think it’s more confident in line and didn’t take two days unlike the previous piece. Still struggling to get that colour of the reddish brown brick – grr! While I was painting this a few women in swimming costumes and fluorescent floats came by and had a look – turns out they are free swimmers, swimming in the Thames. It wasn’t exactly warm that day – I was shivering by the time I was waiting at the bus stop – so rather them than me! Free swimming is popular in this part of the river…but given all the motorboats and barges zipping around, not sure I feel it’s that safe.
In my Mynktober post I mentioned working on a piece at Hampton Palace a few days previously – this is that piece. Like the first Garrick’s Temple, lack of light meant I had to come back and finish the watercolour, but this time I knew better and didn’t rush the watercolour.
Hampton Court Palace is one of Henry the VIII’s palaces, and was kept by the royal family, and is one of only two surviving palaces he built – which is amazing given Henry got palaces like some purchase handbags or hats! Like Nonsuch which made Hampton Court seem like a granny flat – but that sadly got sold for stone and torn down by the mistress of Charles II.
Hampton Court – sketch, fountain pen, A4 etchr sketchbook. 
Hampton Court, fountain pen and watercolour, A4 etchr sketchbook.
This is another experiment in limited range, just using the single box of 6 colours with only primaries – red, yellow, blue and secondaries – orange, purple and green. I was really missing my raw umber and yellow ochre in this, but given Hampton Court has very orange brick with purple shadows I think it works. Again, I was cursing myself when I started this because of the complexity – it’s an Elizabethan Pimp Castle ‘Yo Dawg I heard ya liked chimneys, so I put more more chimneys in your chimneys!’
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