Still Life at AVA : Nasturtiums and Copper Jug.

Last week, at Avon Valley Artists, the theme was Still Life. As the previous week had involved food, I thought it would be ok to do some flowers. I say ok, as I often get a bit of teasing for my ability to sneak flowers into whatever the topic is!
I am really in love with my collection of copper kitchen ware and take every opportunity to include a piece in my paintings. If you looked a couple of weeks ago at the post you will remember my lovely skillet which I used with the gourds.

So this time the choice was one of the squat jugs, and a photo from the garden last year of some nasturtiums. The two things have lots of those rich golden colours in common and I did not think it would be too difficult to arrange the flowers in the jug from my imagination. The only thing to remember is that the flowers need to be seen to be supported by the rim of the jug, and not self supporting in the middle of the space.

I did a reasonably accurate drawing, and added in pencil in all the reflections I would need before leaving home. This meant that I could manipulate the light in the studio. At AVA, the sun comes very strongly through large windows, and can be blinding for some members, so the curtains often get drawn which leaves little excitement in metal reflections. To add a little more interest both in shape and size, I took a lemon with me to put into the composition.

Apologies for not taking a series of photos, but I rarely remember to take my camera to AVA and my phone seems only to produce mediocre photos.....even if I remember to get it out!

The painting was fairly straightforward and was done with my usual palette on Fabriano paper.

 

 

                                              ' Still Life with Nasturtiums and Copper Jug'

Caryopteris

 

Peter Ward was kind enough to give me this lovely photo of  caryopteris. I have had it a while and had every intention of trying to paint from it. I should have known better!!

Anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, but I do find these plants made up of lots of tiny parts very difficult to interpret.I think it is all about getting the general flower head shape right and then adding just enough detail to suggest what is going on in the centre
With this in mind I put an initial wash onto some 300g rough paper and let it thoroughly dry. I intended to paint the flowers without any drawing, so I just started with the darker areas and painted in the buds.

This seemed to be fine, but then I sort of got cold feet, and was afraid that by drawing the flowers with paint, I could get the shapes totally wrong, so I then drew in the opening blooms with pencil so that I could be sure the would be ok.

Once this was done, I added details into the flower heads, starting at the top and working down. Some of the flowers were identified by painting darker around them so defining their shape, others were painted with a mixture of Cobalt blue and white Acrylic Gouache'. I worked gradually down the painting, adding more buds and open flowers, some stems and leaves.

I used an architects pen to draw in the dark stamens and then enhanced the background with some darks and some magenta to try to warm up the image. At this stage it seemed quite a cool painting. Even now that it is finished I wish it had more warmth to it. I also think I should have used a lot more Cobalt blue and a lot less Anthraquinachridone and Ultramarine Blues.

Too late to change it now, but a lesson learnt for the next time I give it a go.

 

 

'Caryopteris'

 

Watercolour on Fabriano Artistico Extra White Rough 300g paper

Recent Efforts : Roses, Plums and Hellebores

This is just a simple catch-up on what I have been doing both at home and at Avon Valley Artists.
There is nothing very different in the way I have approached the paintings and I never really gave any thought to photographing the stages I went through..........sorry about that. But I thought I would share the outcomes with you, and if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask. I hope you enjoy looking.

 

 

 

This rose painting was a result of my liking the penultimate photo of the Roses painting that I published a couple of posts ago. The intention was to produce a painting like it, but it is not quite how it worked out!!

 

 

These Hellebores were painted after a brief session in the garden where I noticed that the brave Hellebores were beginning to poke their heads above the frosty soil. They were painted from photos I took last winter. This years crop are not far enough advanced yet.

 

This Still Life was painted at the weekly club session in response to the title 'Food'. The jug was originally white like the bowl, and the plums were quite blue,  but when I got home, I felt the painting was too cool, so added the green stripes to the jug and some warmer colour into the plums and the shadows. I enjoyed trying to get that bloom which plums have when they have been sat in the bowl for a little while. It is similar to trying to paint grapes and damsons!

All the paintings were done on Fabriano Artistico Extra White paper, the 'Roses' and 'Hellebores' on a Rough surface and the 'Plums' on a Not surface, using my usual palette of watercolours with some Acrylic White gouache

Gourds x 2

Over the Christmas period, there was not too much time for painting as the studio becomes the guest room. I did notice, however, that the bowl of gourds that I had given me were starting to deteriorate with the central heating. This seemed quite unusual as normally they last a lot longer. The result was that I decided to do a couple of still life paintings of them whilst they were in reasonable condition.

There were two distinct types.....some really quaint miniature gourds and some more traditional sized ones.

I started with the little ones and selected a couple of little pots to go with the, together with a ripe fig which I thought helped the colour composition. I loved the lumpiness of the skins on these little gourds and put quite a lot of effort into getting them right. The result is quite a tight painting, but I am pleased with the result.

I am not sure about the funny shape of the striped pot, so I have had another look at the original, and it seems ok on the painting. I can only assume that the photo was taken whilst the paper was still damp and slightly buckled.......Sorry about that !

'Miniature Gourds And Pots'

Fabriano Artistico Extra White Not paper and watercolours

30 x 20 cms

I wanted to try to get the second painting a little looser, so I piled the larger of the gourds into a lovely copper pan that I have used quite often in still life paintings, because of the gorgeous colours of the copper. The skins of the gourds were much smoother, so there was not the need for so much attention to detail and I was able to paint the whole picture with simple washes. A completely different effect which I hope you think works.

'Gourds and Copper Pan'

Fabriano Artistico Extra White Not paper and watercolours

30 x20 cms

Buildings

The final week before Christmas at the  Avon Valley Art group subject was 'Buildings' and it was a bit of a struggle to find something that I would enjoy and that I could manage. I found a photo in a set of photos from my visit to New England.

First stage , as ever was to do as careful a drawing as possible. I always do this before going to the session, as I would otherwise spend the whole two hours doing the drawing!

I was going to mask out some of the white with masking fluid, but decided against it as it would need to be added the night before, and as the paper has quite a soft surface (I was using 600 gm Leonardo Rough) I was afraid that the removal of the fluid would also remove the surface of the paper.I knew I could touch up with White Acrylic Gouache if I made any mistakes, but it did mean that I had to be careful painting around the steeple.
I started with the sky, and then painted in the building, followed by the greenery and the trees.Lastly I added a few Indigo/Payne;s Grey streaks to the foreground snow and that was it almost done. I used a toothbrush to give a really good splatter to suggest falling snow and that was it.

I am really pleased with the result but just wish I had made the sky a little darker or stronger and the greenery a little less green. However, if it prints well, it may well become next year's Christmas card.....How's that for forward planning!

White Roses

I am not really sure why I decided to have another go at this subject. Maybe it is simply a case of needing to paint and pulling out a picture and getting on with it.

I did think about how I was going to do the painting and I had in my mind the possibility of combining the white with an aqua blue background to produce a very cool image, but that was it as far as thought went!

The drawing was done carefully to ensure that the finished flowers actually looked like roses and I was careful to include an odd number of blooms. I deliberately drew everything to the left hand side of the paper as I am quite into dark passages giving way to very light passages.I is not too important if the pencil lines are a bit heavy as these will be erased when each section is completed.

I painted the flowers first, this time, putting in only enough background to identify the outer shape of each rose. I kept in mind the fact that almost all parts of white flowers are not in fact white and I tried to add blues, greys, yellows and slight amounts of pink as I thought necessary to produce the irregularity of the undulations in the petals. I also identified the orange centres of the four main flowers so that I could see how the composition was developing.At this point, I decided I needed another rose in the top LH corner to make the composition a bit stronger.

I painted just up to the pencil lines but not over them, which enabled me to remove the lines as the painting progressed. I also tried not to define too clearly some of the outer petals so that there could be a few lost edges when the background was added. Maybe in hindsight, I should have done more of this!As the painting developed, I added in the extra stem and flower on the lower right hand side . I also added a fallen petal, which I now wish I had left out.With the flowers generally in place, I added stems and leaves and began painting outwards from the middle the background using Teal Blue, Indigo and Ultramarine Blue. Whilst it was still wet, I dropped in some Apatite Green to increase the darks.

I added shadow to the pot and some strong colour around the pot to define its shape and to push the background back, as well as giving the pot a firm surface on which to stand.I finally added a few extra dark spots to the centres of each rose, lifted out a little green on some of the leaves and decided that it was time to stop.
Looking at the painting propped up in the studio, the roses seem a little to perfect, maybe a few blemishes on some of the petals would have helped them seem more 'real'. Nonetheless, they were a pleasure to paint and they will certainly get a mount and frame some time in the future,

(Sorry about the long black hair across the final photo....my daughter has been sleeping in the studio, our spare bed space, and obviously left it behind and I did not notice it!!)

Clematis ('Water' topic)

As mentioned in my previous post, the next subject at our painting group was 'Water'.
I was due to go North to visit my aging mother so could only stay for half the session, so was looking for something small to do.
I came across an article by Jan Kunz in her book 'Painting Watercolour Florals That Glow' which described how to paint dew drops on petals.
I have done this before but thought it was a good small exercise to practice for an hour.

I took a piece of heavy 'not' watercolour paper, and in the top LH corner, I painted freehand several clematis petals and a centre of yellow/orange. At this stage the flower painting was not the object of the exercise so accuracy was not my prime concern.

I then proceeded to paint a few dew drops onto the petals to remind myself how they worked. This filled the necessary first hour of the session and I left for my journey North.

When I got back home, I thought that my club exercise was perhaps better than expected and it might be worth finishing.

I drew in two more flowers, and tried to make them fit the original wash which had only been done for the first clematis.

I used only one colour for the petals...Quinachridone Purple... and the same pigment with a little Indigo for the background.
I originally pencilled in a bud and a couple of leaves, but decided to keep just the flowers with their limited palette. I added a few more dew drops, not all of them totally successful, but ok I think, and of course had to use a bit of white acrylic to alter the centres of the flowers as Clematis has the lovely core of white/cream stamens.Finally I darkened some bits of the background to make the flowers stand out a little more, but tried to be careful to keep the original top flower the main part of the painting.
As usual, my final task was to erase the pencil drawing where possible. No splatter this time!

                                                               'Clematis After Rain'
                                                                    33 x 22 cms

Unusually for me, this is a comparatively small painting and it will go into a 16 x 12 inch frame.