Breaking out

I almost always paint quarter sheet paintings, not because I love working at that size, but because it's the most practical size for my own work area.  I've been feeling more and more frustrated and penned in, not able to enjoy the truly magical effects of watercolour as much as I would like.  I finally broke out, taking a half sheet and letting the paint do the work.... what fun!

Popping Poppies - 15 x 22 inches

Peony #2

A second peony, more procrastination as the chocolates are still waiting for me to return.  All those delicious white-edged pink petals were fun to paint, even at just 7" x 7"!

Peony Procrastination

Yes, I am still avoiding the chocolates!  I just need to be  in the right mood for that kind of painting, and I'm not at the moment.

Todays distraction is a small peony, painted without any initial sketch on a scrap of Fabriano Artistico extra white paper.  I quite like the looseness I've achieved!

Peony Procrastination - 7" x 7"

Green Skies

Taking a break from the chocolates, I felt like playing with pigments and water, inspired partly by Maggie Latham's "100 Washes" blog, and partly by the book "Wet in Wet Watercolour" by Ewa Karpinska.  What started as a simple wash of shades of blue and indigo became something completely different when I accidentally dipped my brush into green gold - a dramatic stormy sky appeared on the paper!  I had to use it, and turned the wash into a stormy landscape.  I wish I hadn't left the patch of white paper in the centre, that was an unhappy accident, but the discovery that green gold and indigo make a wonderful brooding sky was happier!

Still plugging away...

I never imagined it would take me so long to paint these chocolates! I'm concentrating on painting the darker areas on the tissue paper, I'll add some colour to the lighter areas once I have the shadows in. I wish I was more disciplined and didn't procrastinate!

Chocaholic dreams..... or nightmares?

The chocolate painting is coming along, especially the sweet treats themselves. The real headache is painting the magenta tissue paper, very slow going!

Happy New Year!

Starting 2011 with a still life - this time of chocolates I was given for Christmas! They were a loose selection, chosen specially for me, and presented in a beautiful box, surrounded by magenta tissue paper. I has been hard to resist eating them, but painting chocolate is almost as much fun!

This is the full painting, it's a challenge but I think I need that right now!