Although many of Revelstoke’s houses are extremely picturesque, others have a comfortable slightly down at heel aspect, declaring to the world that they don’t care about looking glamorous when they are surrounded by such dramatic backdrops. Our next door neighbour’s garden shows a passion for flowers and barbecues – what more could you desire?

This was a tiny sketch executed from my bedroom window at 5.30am, just as the sun was tinting the mountain (not Mt Revelstoke this time). I used my finest waterproof drawing pen, then sloshed watercolour over it. Took about 45 minutes.

After breakfast we went for a walk along the river, which is literally one street away from the house. The Columbia river is fast flowing, a pale turquoise blue and about twice as wide as the Murray. The mountains stride along the opposite bank, challenging you to paint them. So I gave it my best, but after 45 minutes I felt I knew less about this mountain than when I started. If you photograph it, you capture one moment: if you try to paint it, you are literally trying to catch shadows. I will have to adopt the ancient Chinese method: sit in the landscape for an hour, then go away and paint it from memory.  You can see what happened in my next post: #Sketchaday6