A week in Cornwall

A pair of digital ink and wash illustrations featuring the Cornish flag.

At the end of May ‘24, Sal and I headed off with Dolly dog on the train from Westgate-on-Sea destination Penryn, nr Falmouth for a week away staying with old friends from when we lived in Falmouth 2015-2018.

Before heading down I had made the decision to have as much a screen free time as possible. What I did allow myself to do though was take photographs on my phone but rather than leaving them on my phone, I uploaded them to an online file at the end of each day. In total there were almost 230 photos of which I selected just over 30. I used this selection to draw from as reference and create a condensed summary of our time away.

Almost a month after getting back, I finally finished the last drawing this morning and then set about putting them into spreads. This was always the intention, I didn’t want them to just exist as single drawings, nor did I necessarily want it to be a chronological history of our time away.

A digital pen and ink illustration of a four panel spread showing from top left a pair of goods train carriages a pair of train tickets, a woman looking from the train window and a woman reading.

A four panel spread of our train ride down with the highlight always being the stretch along the coast at Dawlish.

We made use of our friends lovely garden and Dolly was a big fan of exploring outside.

A spread with two illustrations side by side of a bedroom and a woman doing her make-up in the bedroom

Mel and Mark kindly gave up their bedroom for us and it was perfect with a nice lounge area and view of the garden when we just needed some chill time.

A two image spread of illustrations showing a dog on a windowsill and an industrial garage door.

Dolly regularly parked herself on the windowsill and this pairing therefore made sense.

A two panel illustration with a bucolic image of a street in Penryn and a family crabbing in the harbour

Was nice to spend time just wandering round Penryn with Dolly dog on the daily walks.

An illustration of the pink doors of Bohls Yard Penryn

These beautiful gates / doors open up to Bohls Yard with the brilliant Pizza 42 and some cool indy stores.

A two panel illustration of street scenes in Penryn, Cornwall

Another two street scenes from Penryn. The Artists Retreat cottage really resonated as this really felt like a reset break.

Two panel line illustration of a media wall and a vinyl collection

Since we were last there, Mark and Mel have reconfigured their lounge into the coolest, most welcoming space. Book, magazines, vinyl and CD’s all have their space surrounding the tele. Dream media wall set up.

A two panel ink and wash illustration of two pieces of clothing on Mannequins

Going back through the photographs to find what I wanted to draw was where this started but the joy in finding pairings from the drawings afterwards is pure joy.

A two panel illustration with wind as it's theme

This panel is made up of collaging the two drawings on the right and pairing with the amazing tree from The Polurrian Hotel. Wind is what drew these pair together for me.

A two panel illustration detailing passageways

We didn’t go far as time was limited but this pairing combines a trip to St Mawes with our base in Penryn with alleyways as the connection.

A two panel illustration of a day trip to St Mawes Cornwall

The connection here is St Mawes, a 20 minute boat trip from either of the Falmouth Piers. I absolutely love this place and on this trip I was struck by this tree that stood high above and the beautiful building hugging the rockface that I want to buy when I’m rich :-)

A two panel illustration with three drawings of Billie Eilish and one of Diz

Another beautiful pairing. Diz is the reason I got into Billie Eilish so it’s only right they sit together. We’ll ignore the fact that Diz is sat at Truro station as we missed our connecting train and had to wait an hour for the next one. Oh how we laughed

This took time, I had found it hard at times to keep going but I am so so pleased I did. I’ll come back to this in a future post but I think this is the start of a new way of working for me.

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June prints - back to monochromatic drawing