out and about with artist Renee Walden

out and about

22 February 2021

Where has my sketchbook been venturing recently? As always it seems to be my life in New Zealand is about mountains and water. Definitely no complaints about that - gotta love summer!

Black Peak and Fog Peak from Bremner Bay, Lake Wanaka

Boat reflection on a calm morning, Lake Hawea

All of these sketches done in The Perfect Sketchbook from Etchr, A5. I'll be writing a blog post about sketchbooks soon. Watch this space!

watercolour in my sketchbook out and about 2021 paintings urban sketching new zealand watercolour landscapes

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One of my all-time favourite paintings of a stormy day in a ruined Roman town in Spain.

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painting the valley of the red gods

28 April 2026

There's something particular about returning to a place you loved when you were young. The Valley of the Red Gods, tucked into the Western Cape of South Africa, is one of those places for me — and f...

a bluebell forest in watercolour (without painting a single bluebell)

11 April 2026

There's something about bluebells. That hazy, glowing carpet of purple-blue that appears for just a few weeks each spring, always in the kind of light that makes you want to stand very still. It's one...

how to paint primroses without getting lost in the detail

2 April 2026

Aren't primroses just made to be painted? That deep violet with the yellow centres, and if you look closely, so many beautiful colour variations within each petal. They're the first really intense col...