Teasels

Making the most of what is around at the moment, I have had another go at a bunch of teasels. I love their curly dried sepals (?) and their spikes.

I only had a couple, but they are quite standard in shape so I used my imagination to compose the group. I did have a photo of the original drawing, but transferring the photos from the camera card to Photoshop, it got deleted, so sorry about that.

Once the drawing was complete, I used masking fluid to protect the spikes and the sepals, as I wanted to be fairly free with the initial wash. I really do prefer Pebeo's Drawing Gum to all of the others. It is the most free-flowing of the rest that I have tried, and works well in my drawing pen, which I use for applying very fine lines like stamens and spikes. It is also good in that it has a light blue colour, so you can see where you have put it. I also masked out the stems at this point. It is a good idea to test the masking fluid on the paper before committing it to the actual painting. If the masking fluid is to stay in place for any time,  I have found that the gum can remove the surface of the paper. This seems to happen especially with light weight or cheap papers.

 When the gum was completely dry, I washed the whole of the background with Transparent Orange   (Schminke), Cobalt Teal Blue ( Daniel Smith ) and Indigo ( Daniel; Smith). I was careful not to paint inside the teasel shapes. I then added sea salt into parts of the background, to be used to create some more hedgerow type stuff behind the teasels.

The painting had to be left over night to allow the salt to dry thoroughly, hence the need to test the gum. The larger pieces of sea salt take a surprising amount of time to dry, and because they absorb quite large quantities of paint, some quite pale areas can appear around the salt, with some quite dark areas where the salt has been sat.

When all was dry, I brushed away the salt and removed the gum. Using mainly Yellow Ochre, Quinachridone Rust (Both by Graham ) and Burnt Umber ( Daniel Smith ) I painted in the teasels.

I used white Acrylic Ink and Acrylic Gouache to add form to the seed heads in the background and to highlight some of the spikes. I also added a little bit of form to the base of the teasels from where each spike grows.

All that was left to do was to add a few darks to the stems and the base of each seed head and a gentle spatter of Cobalt Teal Blue and White Acrylic Gouache, and it seems finished.
As usual, I will live with it for a while before mounting, in case anything seems to need adjusting.

                                                                             
                                                                           'Teasels'
                                      Watercolour on Fabriano Artistico Extra White 300g Rough