I recently started going to a local art group, the first group I’ve gone to since moving house last year.

These are a couple of pen & watercolour paintings I did for the meeting on 12th February 2026, both are very far from my usual subjects so were challenging but very enjoyable.

A visiting professional artist led this session and our task for the evening was to do a monochrome painting. For the fish I started with a loose pencil sketch to play around with the composition and then firmed up the lines using Unipin fineline pens. After erasing the pencil lines I applied Winsor & Newton Cotman Black. I usually mix my own blacks with Brown Madder and Indigo which give a really rich black, but I must admit that the Cotman black was much better than I expected (although I’ll continue mixing my own).

The Goldfinch was my back-up subject for the night and was done mostly at home as I didn’t have time to finish it at the meeting.

If any of you don’t already go to an art group I’d highly recommend it. In my experience they’ll be a friendly bunch with a common interest, you’ll thoroughly enjoy it and learn something in the process.

Visit my Etsy shop, https://GordonMclemanArt.etsy.com to see the full range of original watercolours and prints currently available for sale (sales to the United States will be ‘Delivered Duty Paid’).

If you can collect your purchase directly from me, in Peterhead, Scotland, please email me at sales@gm-art.online with details of your order instead of going through the Etsy checkout and you’ll get a 20% discount on my Etsy prices. Payment by cash on collection, PayPal or bank transfer.