Many beautiful flowers are currently showing off in my garden, but there are none that I want to draw or paint.
I’m fortunate to have my groceries delivered and was delighted to find this bunch of freesias for a mere £2.50 – bargain!
Combining ink drawings with watercolours is new for me and I anticipate continuing along this path, experimenting further. Using ink is such a joy so I will press on towards producing the images that are more in keeping with those that scramble around in my brain.
Why do the birds go on singing? Why do the stars glow above? Don’t they know it’s the end of the world? It ended when I lost your love ~ Sylvia Dee ~
Spring doesn’t know that our lives have been put on hold.
The blue skies, birds and flowers are giving me so much joy during this terrifying time with the Coronavirus epidemic running amock around our world.
So as I have plenty of time on my hands at the moment, I’ll share some of the flowers that are popping up in my tiny garden.
Watercolour and ink were used to create this. I didn’t realise that the ink wasn’t waterproof so it made for some interesting marks.
Hope they will brighten up your day even just a little.
Spring will come and so will happiness. Hold on. Life will get warmer. ~ Anita Krizzan ~
I’ve always wanted to paint flowers but held back because for some nebulous reason I feared they would be too difficult. Sometimes you just have to go for it. Watercolour is utterly perect for painting flowers!
These Crocosmias (I had to look them up) were painted on dry paper using luscious, raw, thick watercolour paint, straight out of the tube. Before the paint dried, I went back in with a clean, damp brush to tease out the colour. A brush handle dipped in the paint became a handy mark maker.
One of my biggest challenges is knowing when to stop; I’ve ruined so many paintings at the last minute – although on this occasion I managed to step back in time….just.
Where has the sun gone?
This Hydrangea sketch is my attempt to defy indications that the British summer has already bowed out. It’s still July and I’m not ready to put my sandals and sunglasses away just yet.
Based loosely on the principles of negative painting, I worked around the petals and leaves to define their shapes and bring them forward.
Transparent colours were used as several layers of increasingly deeper tone are required to develop the shapes.
For quick reference I use a Winsor & Newton chart of hand-painted professional waercolours which has proved invaluable to me. It not only clearly demonstrates what each colour looks like from intense to watery pale, but it also lists whether they are transparent, semi-transparent or opaque. It also saves me the bother of making my own chart.
It is important to allow the paint to dry properly between each glaze…something I’m particularly bad at.
While you’re here I may as well rid my heaving bosom of something that still has me simultaneously wincing and fuming.
A recent television program documented preparations for an exhibition at the Leopold Museum in Vienna where some witless noodle made the sorry decision to show self-absorbed Tracey Emin’s gratuitous tosh alongside my favourite artist, Egon Scheile (cue audible ey-roll). Really? You just couldn’t make it up. It was embarrassing.
Emin, as inebriated by her own suppurating ego as by the liquor she guzzles, is so trapped by her urge to shock that the outrage she strives for has become a cliché. Her teeth-suckingly offensive ‘work’ has no correlation to art and I freely throw prejudicial cups of tea in the direction of those who confuse art with self-publication.
It’s hard to believe that people pay to stare at this excruciatingly crude fakery and that those who part with vast sums of money to own this pointless, ugly stuff are educated people. The joke is on them. It is freak art masquerading as originality. Self-indulgent clap-trap and most of us have her sussed.
You can probably tell that I consider Emin and her ilk to have all the appeal of a flatulent dog in a lift.
I don’t have her millions nor her obtuse, fawning devotees, but I am confident that whatever I paint will always have more merit than anything Tracely Emin can do.
Deep breaths….
My husband is right – I do morph into curmudgeonly Victor Meldrew on this subject.
As an antidote to all that negativity – inspired by flower paintings by artist friends who make it look much easier than it is – herewith some sketches where I trusted the paint and allowed the water to do the work. Marks were also made using the brush handle.
PIGMENTS OF MY IMAGINATION 