Pots,Vases And Flowers

This weeks title for the AVA group session  was Pots,Vases and Flowers. I had already done a drawing for this session, which I was unable to leave alone (see previous post) so I had a bit of a rush job to do a drawing and put on the first wash before Thursdays session. I picked the Cosmos from the garden and made sure I had various pinks and some whites.

I used a piece of Whatman 300g Not, extra white paper that I had bought to try, being attracted by the extra white label. I am informed by Peter that this is no longer available, but I felt it needed using up, as I seem to remember it was not cheap. As I was going to put a nice juicy wet wash onto the sheet, I did stretch it to make it easier to work.

I drew out the pots and flowers and then, using Quinachridone Magenta, Ultramarine Blue and Cobalt Teal Blue, I liberally washed areas of the paper. I did make sure that some parts were left white to accommodate the white flowers.

Before starting painting on Thursday morning, I used a drawing pen and some masking fluid to draw in the very fine lines of the leaves as I wanted them to be a very fresh green and so wanted the starting point to be white.
All went well, I painted in the flowers trying to create some lost edges on the LH side, and did some work on the two white pots on the left.

At home , later when I came to add more to the painting, I tried to remove the masking fluid. Most was fine, but I noticed that I had quite a few tiny specks which were difficult to remove. On closer inspection, I saw that the drawing pen had scratched the surface of the paper and the masking fluid has gone into the scratches. The result was that I slightly spoiled some of the surface getting it all off. This has not spoiled the painting, but that is the first time I have seen that happen, and in future I will be very careful to only use the drawing pen with the lightest of touches. I do like the fine lines one can create with these pens, so I do want to continue to use it. I will also look to see if the tips are burred in any way.

                                                            'Cosmos and White Pots'
                                                Whatman 300g not paper,     46x33cm