I think I must be hungry!

My Friday art group loves drawing, we have tackled fruit, veg, flowers, cameras, jugs and a whole wealth of other items. For the last couple of weeks I bought sweets for them to draw as they are really good to draw in pen and watercolour.

Although free to eat as many as they can I am still left with a couple of boxes full of sweets. I wonder how long they will last......

You can see some of my students' drawings on my Cambridge Art Class Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/cambridgeartclass/

I thought it might be interesting to show my very first sketch of 'The Backs' painting. The idea had been whizzing around my head for some time and when a friend asked what would be my next painting I did this doodle on a napkin.

Yes it does sound cliched but that is exactly what happened.

I kind of build my paintings so I divided it into sections and added the background colours. I played with how the grass on the Backs would look and decided to make it patchwork so I painted green squares of three different sizes to show the perspective.

Next I painted King's College, loved doing that. Then it was hours and hours of tiny detailed painting for the flowers in the grass, followed by the punters, the tree and after a very long time of almost a year - I painted the blackberries. Then I sat and looked at it. After another few months I added the seated girl and smartened the whole painting up.

When Byard Art asked me to paint 5 large paintings I knew this would be one of them but I waited another 5 months before I could add the varnish.

I found the original scribble not long ago and was actually amazed at how closely I had followed my original idea because normally I go off in all sorts of directions.

I do have favourite paintings and this is one of them.

Today I took my Friday art group to the Zoology Museum in Cambridge. The museum is not fully open yet, that happens on 23 June, but it is still a great place to draw.

We met outside at 10am and walked around the gallery choosing which of the wonderful exhibits we were going to draw, then retreated to the Whale Cafe for a bit of sustenance before returning to the gallery and getting our pencils out.

We had each chosen a different creature to draw. Clare choose a black rhinoceros skull, Graham tackled an African elephant, Winnie drew a giant turtle and Ya Su, who is a new student and has never been to out to draw, choose a rabbit. I was so impressed by the results and I asked the lovely attendant to take a photo of us 'urban sketchers style' with our drawings.

What did I draw? I fell in love with a very cross seabream skeleton. When I showed this to a friend he thought it looked like a political cartoon of a politician! ....I know what he means.

These two paintings have been in the window at Byard Art.

I love the reflections of King's College, it must be wonderful to look out on such beautiful architecture during work time. I love it that the painting on the right is of King's too.

The painting on the left is called 'Tree of Discovery' and includes references to Cambridge learning and pushing boundaries and includes Hawkings' Equation that he wants on his tombstone, an image from the Parker Library ...... but more of that later.

The 'Along your Street' exhibition at Byard Art started yesterday and finishes on 1st July.

Today I saw an ad for the show in a local magazine and was delighted to see my painting of Newton's Apple Tree featured. The painting itself has already been sold and will soon be hanging on a wall in New York. Wow, I really am feeling so excited.

The painting depicts the tree outside Trinity College. The tree may be a descendant of the apple tree which grew in Isaac Newton's mother's garden where he worked on the Theory of Gravity after an apple landed on his head.... or it may be just a fantasy. The buildings around are snippets of Trinity College.

If you would like to see the exhibition the gallery is on King's Parade in Cambridge.