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!

A busy time, but I'm still finding time for painting

September has been hectic, with two more visits to The Kington Gallery, and making arrangements for my youngest daughter to move to University in South Wales. I have managed to complete two watercolours though (I think I'd go mad without painting!)

First I painted these crocuses which were a joyful sight earlier this year, after a very hard winter.

Crocus Chorus
15" x 11", watercolour on Fabriano Artistico 140lb

Then I was inspired to return to macro florals after visiting the studio of Peter Horrocks in Kington, Herefordshire. His work is fascinating, abstracts "painted" with pure earth pigments rubbed onto the support in layers.

I chose a single gladiolus flower which had wonderful lighting, great to paint in this exciting medium!

Glad All Over
11" x 15", watercolour on Fab. Artistico 140lb

I think I'll continue to explore macros for a while, they present some interesting challenges.

Another racing scene and an exhibition

I worked hard to get this watercolour completed in time for my joint exhibition with Janet Thomas at The Kington Gallery, which opened on Saturday and runs until late September. The time constraints seemed to do me good because I think this is one of my best!

I attended the opening day, which wasn't only an exhibition opening, it was also the opening of this unique new gallery, and was thrilled to make a "big" sale within the first hour! "In The Running" has gone to a new home with a lovely lady who I know will enjoy it - it's a wonderful feeling when that perfect match happens, the right painting for the right person.

The gallery itself is very special. For the last year, it has been a labour of love for Janet Thomas who bought a disused restaurant and set about turning it into a welcoming place for both artists and art lovers. It is going to be a massive asset for this small market town in rural Herefordshire!

More racehorses

In the Running
Watercolours, 15" x 11"

Another painting based on reference photos taken at Hereford racecourse. This time I was inspired by the lighting, especially the shadows being cast by one horse and jockey, landing on the lead horse.

This painting will join two other racehorse paintings and several florals in an exhibition in my friend's new gallery in Kington, Herefordshire.

Horses for a change

Final Hurdle
15" x 11"
Watercolours on hot pressed Fabriano Artistico

I needed a change from flowers, and I always enjoy the challenge of painting horses in motion, so I looked through my reference files and found a photo I took at Hereford racecourse a few years ago. The challenge I was presented with involved working out how to depict movement and speed when the horses were literally running straight at me! I think I managed it.

Another busy week....and some great news!

Just when I thought I'd be able to get back to painting we had a surprise visit from good friends! It was amazing to see them all after 7 years, but it means I have nothing new to share.

I do have exciting news though - I have just signed a contract to license 6 of my watercolours for use on greeting cards! The 6 paintings selected are "Distilled Sunlight"(daffodils), "Song of Summer"(poppies), "Rainbow Tulips", "Summer Breeze"(daisies), "Drumstick Primula"and "Violas". This is how they should look as a group.

It's a huge step forward in my art career, hopefully this will lead to even bigger things!

A busy time

I've mostly been doing small sketches over the last couple of weeks, life has been busy with wonderful highs and a few lows. The biggest high was my eldest daughter's graduation ceremony on Friday! We travelled to North Wales on Thursday, staying the night in a hotel before the Friday morning ceremony at Bangor University. We were bursting with pride when our daughter walked onto the stage in the wonderful hall and was admitted to her degree, a BA Hons. in Criminology and Criminal Justice, by the Vice-Chancellor and the President of the University. Any lows were more than cancelled out.

The last finished painting I did before the trip was this, another loose floral on hot pressed paper. For once I'm going to share the reference, which is a photo I provided for the Mindbender challenge on the Painting Friends art forum. The challenge is to adapt the reference, by cropping, rotating, adding, subtracting, whatever you want to do to make the painting your own. I chose to just crop.

And here is my painting, a loose and pretty floral. Violas are so cheerful, I hope I managed to convey that feeling.

Violas
11"x15", watercolours on paper

Different styles for different flowers

When I look through my paintings I realise that I treat different flowers in very different ways. Some need to be very controlled, others work best when the paint is allowed to do the work without too much interference.

First, magnolias. They're very elegant flowers, on stiff branches and with waxy petals. I feel that these are best suited to the controlled approach, as you can see in this painting which I finished last weekend.

Magnolias
11" x 15" watercolour and acrylic ink on paper

The background is quite fluid and loose, but the flowers themselves much stiffer and well-defined.

Now the irises, much more delicate with ruffled petals which move easily in the breeze. Strong colours and lots of movement work really well, mostly wet-in-wet for exciting lost edges.

Iris Carnival
11" x 15", watercolours on paper

Finally poppies - loose, delicate washes for papery petals, wet-in-wet for soft edges and movement, soft colours for summer.

Summer Days
12" x 10", watercolours on paper

All three completed in the last week, but totally different.

Pattys Plum - final painting

I have a confession - I don't always enjoy the painting process! Shocking, I know, but sometimes it's a struggle, decisions don't come easily, and getting to the end is a battle.

Occasionally it seems like a watercolour just paints itself, the brush has a life of its own, and you arrive at the final painting feeling like you hardly did anything! This was one of those paintings and, as always seems to happen when I enjoy the process, I love the painting!

Pattys Plum
14" x 11"
watercolours on Fabriano Artistico extra white 140lb paper

Pattys' Plum WIP continued...

This has been so much fun to work on! I loved painting the ruffled petals and dark markings! These are the last WIP images, I'll post the finished work later.

Pattys' Plum

I've been working on a new watercolour of a Pattys' Plum poppy - a wonderful ruffled flower in rich plum shades. I'm loving the challenge of depicting the wrinkled, paper-like petals with pigment and brush!




I should get at least close to completing it tomorrow...... fingers crossed!

Caught by the bug!

It seems dandelions in paint are as hard to escape as dandelions in the garden are! Once I started thinking of them I was surprised to come up with several different ideas for colours and compositions so I am going to explore more in the next few weeks, see what I can come up with!

Here is one more I've done, this time sticking to a cooler palette of colours. I really love these shades of blue and green together!

Dandelion on Jade and Blue
10" x 10", watercolour on paper

The exciting news is that this, with several more of my floral watercolours, might be appearing on greeting cards throughout the UK very soon! As soon as things are finalised I will share the details here.

A return to an old favourite

A few years ago, I was a little obsessed with painting dandelions. I don't know how many I did, but they were popular and always sold quickly. Eventually I grew tired of the same subject and moved onto other things. Last week I was contacted by a small, independent greeting card company who are interested in making cards using some of my work, and the owner mentioned how much he liked the dandelions! I almost groaned, but then I thought "why not?" so here are my two new dandelion paintings!

Cobalt Wishes

Three O'Clock

Hopefully they'll be what the company were thinking of!

Cathedral Gold WIP

I had this reference, golden lilies in the gardens of Hereford Cathedral, in my "to paint" file for several years, but somehow I always passed it over. I imagine I was avoiding the numerous challenges it offered - the first being yellow! It's so hard to shade yellow without ending up with mud. My pet hate is the recommended complementary colour, violet, which results in a dull grey. I prefer to use colours which are closer to yellow - orange and red.

Stage one, I'm already getting some good form in the flowers using azo yellow, winsor yellow deep and alizarin crimson. The background is started using the yellows and indanthrene blue.


The first lily is pretty much done now, the stamens are painted in a strong red made with WYD and AC.


Starting to add form to the main flower, while also working on the background elements. My second challenge was the foliage, and I chose to keep it fairly loose with quick brushstrokes in AY and adding blue wet in wet.


Taking shape nicely now, most of the background flowers are done.


Now the really strong shadows are added to the main lily, using an orange made with AC and WYD. The last of the foliage is painted in the same way as the rest.


Now to finish the background and another dilemma - do I paint over the fiddly foliage or paint around it? I decided on a combination of both so some would be more defined and others would blend into the rest of the background.


A few finishing touches and it's done!