AVA Catch up: Fungus, Winter, Experimental work

The days get busier and busier, and although I am still painting regularly, I do not seem to find that extra time to keep the blog active. Sadly, I think it will get worse as Christmas approaches!
Anyway, just a very brief catch-up on what has been happening at Avon Valley Artists Group.
Three recent weeks subjects for you to look at.............not all successful, but hopefully interesting.

This is my response to the subject of 'Fungus' I found this interesting purple specimen in a book on the subject and really enjoyed playing with the texture of both the pods and the undergrowth. I especially enjoyed the latter, sticking all sorts of paper, threads and gesso to the paper before starting to paint.

This painting is my response to the subject  'Limited Palette'. We were allowed two tubes, pans or sticks of colour and I used Indigo and Quinachridone gold. There was a lot of masking fluid to start with, as I knew I would not be able to add hightlights with white.
 I did add more white when I got home and a bit of splatter to give a more wintery feel to the painting.

This is my take on our experimental week. We had to include newspaper in the work and there was some confusion about whether we had to cover all the ground with newspaper first, or just parts of it.
I went for a complete sheet which was possibly a mistake, and we could only use black and white and one other colour. I selected Brown Madder, but when starting the painting, I wished I had chosen a more yellow gold pigment. However, the Brown Madder does seem to take it into the surreal which is perhaps no bad thing for experimental work.
I am also disappointed that I covered nearly all the news print. I would have liked to have seen more of it in the finished piece, not just the texture that it created.


Hope you enjoy looking.