How an idea develops.

Each year the same or similar images break out of the natural world and force their attention on me. Screaming to be painted.  One of those recurring images is the delicate Japanese anemone that appears late summer and stays with us in the garden until November.  The contrast of the shell pink and luminous white against the dark and dank "past their best" greenery is wonderful, and as mine are in a corner that only gets the early morning sun and then is in quite dark shade for the rest of the day they are like beacons shining out. For the last several years I have attempted to paint them both in oil and in tempera, never successfully.

 I started with this really poor watercolour, the drawing was badly planned and the flower shape squeezed itself into the rectangular paper shape. I then tried to work (as you should in water colour) in layers of colour retaining the lovely soft lights and creating the dark negative shapes. Not one of my greatest efforts and the pinks kept getting muddy.

So I decided to backtrack and work on a simple charcoal drawing, only looking at the shapes and tones and not worrying about the actual colour. this simple charcoal drawing (about A3 size) tok me most of a day to complete.

I felt as though things were looking up and the next day tried my hand at water colour again.

 This is the first layer of pale green wash to settle where the main flowers and brightest lights would sit on the page. Sticking fairly close to the image on the charcoal drawing.

 Here I have added some of the pinks and lilacs so that I can see how the flower forms will develop. I feel as though I have to compromise on the actual flower colour as the paints I have do not exactly match the flower so concentrate on getting the right tone and warmth








I then began adding more colour to the background, very gently layer by layer. You can see at the top right corner I managed to get two cauliflower bursts when the paint dried overnight - I had overwetted the paper, causing it to wrinkle even though I work on glued blocks of paper that are supposed to stay flat.  Adding more dark layers covered the mistake, but I had to take care as the paper was in a very parlous state.

This is the final watercolour and I am rather pleased with it. Its the first time I have managed to successfully retain bright whites, keep the colours soft and create dark enough areas to show the contrast between foreground and background.

 I was so pleased with myself that the next day I worked a similar image up in pastels, adjusting the flower arrangement. I don't think the photo does it justice and will probably have to trim the right hand side away if I decide to mount and fame it.

Not a bad weeks work.

Take a breath...

Three days ago I bounced into my day all ready to start a new group of paintings.  Then I looked around - the easel was surrounded by 4 large 4ft x 2ft recently completed paintings, several smaller pieces,  and my palette was so coated in paint that the knives were sinking into it.

Upstairs there was more of the same. The watercolour table was buried under the detritus of my latest efforts, torn bits of paper, left over mixed paint glued to the glass surface, dried out pieces of kitchen paper that had been used for blotting, and countless pastel sticks







Even the computer table was shoulder deep in paper.

No place to work.




 I cant work if I am in a muddle, so I collected together the finished pieces done over the last 3 months and sorted them into groups and hung them in the outside studio.

Sorted all the waste paper out of my upstairs room - I can now see the computer table (its wood effect) and will be able to start work on the watercolours
Hmm quite pleased with myself. (end of day one).

I put the sealing ground onto the boards that I want to use next  (lovely magenta pink) and left them to dry in the barn.  Then I cleaned all the brushes, knives and palette. (end of day 2).

Day 3 - started work on the first of the new big paintings  - this is going to be based on the apocalyptic skies we have had during this autumn. Lovely dark clouds and the late afternoon sun squeaking through rent skies to throw its gold around.




Yes, I know this has a lot of pink, but we are only at the underpainting stage and the pink will add warmth to the yellows and blues and stop the finished image from being too cold.


Really excited about this, need to work through some more ideas in watercolour,  to see how the final colour layers will work.

Anyway with my now tidy work spaces, and the frames for the big oils have just arrived, I should be able to crack on for a couple more weeks.