At the beginning of the week, I finished off a painting that I had started some weeks ago, not to say months, as a way of getting used to Irises again and their forms and how to best render these complicated flowers.
Here are the stages
At the beginning of the week, I finished off a painting that I had started some weeks ago, not to say months, as a way of getting used to Irises again and their forms and how to best render these complicated flowers.
Here are the stages
But today is a new day and with gratitude for being safe and at peace here, I am back working on the daffodils.
By the way Hello to the new members who have joined…so glad to have you following!
The daffodils at the window painting has been progressing.
I masked out the brightest areas first.
Then I started in an unusual and quite risky way by laying in the shadows over the whole painting with a mix of ultramarine. some pink and some burnt sienna. I ignored the local colour, screwed up my eyes and just painted the darker tones.
The start of the new year has done the trick and I seem to be falling over myself finding new subjects that inspire at the moment. It is weird how this happens and I think the longer your fallow period has been, the more of an avalanche you experience when you get back to it. Ideas seem to be popping up all over.
A trip to Attenborough (which is a nature reserve on the River Trent close by us in Nottingham) on Sunday was a nice interlude. Strange weather with bright sunshine one minute and then a thick mist the next making the scene eerily quiet and almost spooky.
Example today. I did finally get to the studio this afternoon after a walk and brunch at wonderful Attenborough nature reserve (More of that tomorrow), But instead of going on with the irises painting, I was sidetracked by something I’ve got involved with on Twitter.
They have these great ongoing daily sketching challenges. There was #stilldecember last month and now it’s #sketchjanuary. People upload work they’ve done that day. To be honest I don’t really know how it works yet as, with Twitter, nobody can explain much in 140 words, so I’m at a loss, but I’m just joining in anyway!
Anything that makes you sketch and draw daily is a good thing, so even though it has that ring of “showing off” to it, well who cares if it makes you produce work and practise?
So I started a sketch last night from a photo that I’ve had hanging around for ages and keep looking at thinking, hmmm that’s nice, would make a nice watercolour. Here it is
I’ve been working out a new composition for a large iris painting. I’m aware of how much people like Irises and I just love drawing and painting them, so they are my subject for the time being. Getting used to the fact that I am painting these as I want and not how they would best come over for a class of students.
Last year I took an A4 photocopy of an iris drawing I made based on a photo taken in my garden to Staples. I had it enlarged to A3 so that it would be the basis of a large painting. Then I didn’t get around to painting it! So today I have been having another look.
Obviously and sadly, there are no irises to be seen at the moment so I’m using a number of clear photos of which I have taken many over the years to make a composition.
You have to be careful when you don this. Two things are important.
Scale and lighting. The irises have to fit in with each other size wise and they have to be lit from the same side so that the lighting is consistent throughout the painting.
I’m enjoying the challenge but as you can see, I am thoroughly bogged down in Irises. Things could be worse!
There are two things that we should be grateful for in this life, I reckon…first that we have changing seasons to renew our enthusiasm and love of nature and the world around us,
and second,
that we have the start of a new year every 365 days to mark the best of intentions for the future. A fresh start, lovely!
So today felt like the start of something new and I had a burst of enthusiasm for painting.
Goodness knows I have a lot to get on with as I’m going to do an exhibition in early March at the Nottingham Society of Artists gallery. I’m sharing the space with John Pooler for a week.
There usually is a painting or two lying around waiting to be finished and so today I finished these two which had been vain attempts to get going again after a fallow period.
Anyway here they are