Making Something of nothing

The past two weeks at club, we have had subjects which didn't seem to offer very much scope. The first depended upon having an interesting garden at this time of year, which most of us are struggling with, and the second depended upon a shoe or pair of shoes. I am of that certain age when my shoes have to be more sensible than glamorous and hubby does not aspire to sartorial elegance either.
The first week, however proved less difficult as it was surprising what I could find either in the garden itself, or what I had saved and dried on the studio shelf, These I took with me and simply drew the objects, including rose hips, poppy heads, Chinese lanterns and bull rushes, intermingling on the page, and then had a go at painting them. By the end of the two hours I had a reasonable selection of 'pods and twigs' (the official title). Later at home I painted in the lower left background to help hold the composition down and to try to give a sense of it all growing excitingly together, and was quite pleased with the final result!

     

                                                   'Autumn'  watercolours on Centenaire
                                                   300gm rough watercolour paper

The second subject 'Shoes' left me with very few ideas about how to be imaginative with this title, and I have a lot of admiration for those members who managed to be very illustrative and tell some kind of story with their work. I, boringly, set about a very traditional still life using a pair of ankle boots that I found lurking at the back of the cupboard. Did I really ever buy, let alone wear white boots!!

                                         'New Boots'  Watercolour on Centenaire 300gm
                                         rough watercolour paper