Patty's Plum Poppies

 I cannot believe the weather we are having, and at a time when I would normally be putting the garden to bed for the winter, I have all sorts of summer flowers trying to re bud. I was amazed to find two fat oriental poppy buds, one of which has subsequently flowered, but been totally battered down by the wind and rain. Heaven knows what all this late growth will do to next years flowering season!

It did, however, put me in mind of some photos I collected of Patty's Plum poppies which I had not used for a painting, and being kept indoors by the continual rain, it seemed a good time to have a go.

One of my usual paper, Cornwall Matt, 600gm, and an initial wash of Quinachridone pink with a little Quinachridone Magenta, some Indigo and Apatite Green Genuine.

I let the wash dry completely, and then did a reasonably accurate pencil drawing of five poppies and some leaves.

There is not a lot more to say really. I painted in the flowers using the same colours as the top half of the background, being careful not to cover the pencil lines so that they could be removed later, and finished the painting by adding the greens.

I removed the pencil lines carefully at this stage.

I added some white acrylic gouache for the highlights and a little splatter and it was done.

It seems to work quite well, even though it is not really magical, as I would have loved it to be, but they cannot always turn out as well as we would hope, but I am satisfied. It looks very pretty with a mount and frame.

Rose Hips

In response to the title 'Leaves and Berries' I opted for the remains of some rose hips in the garden.

I started by applying a multi-coloured wash to a sheet of 'Cornwall' matt paper.
I wet some parts of the paper with a brush and the central part, I wet using a laundry spray.
The spray has the advantage of giving a textured look to the background as the paint runs along the linked spots of water.

You can see this lovely passage below the deepest area of Quinachridone Coral. I also used Teal Blue, Indigo, Sap Green, Translucent Orange and Quinachridone Rust.
I let the paint dry completely and then added a faint pencil drawing of the rose hips.I was careful to keep the central textured area as free from hips as possible as I really liked this part of the background.

I painted the hips, created some leaf shapes and added some twiggy forms for the stems. I kept the stems as natural as possible by blowing a small puddle of paint across the paper to give them natural shapes
I tried to vary the colour of the hips as much as possible, and left some only partially painted into the background.I erased any remaining visible pencil lines.

When all the hips were painted, I felt that the bottom three were in too much of a straight line, so I added a couple more to hopefully improve the composition.
I darkened the top LH corner and added to the bramble bits at the top. I decided that this was the point to stop. It is too easy to work dark areas into reds and get them 'dirty'. Even now it is not as fresh as I would have liked it, but I think it will do!