Honesty

Just a quick post this time, as the exhibition is approaching with enormous rapidity. There has been so much to do. It is quite a daunting task to check over 90 paintings for labels, fingermarks on glass, decent bubble-wrap bags etc. I try to do as much as possible ongoing during the year, but it is still quite hard work. All is now more or less ready, so I am posting this whilst I have a few minutes, as nothing will get done, neither painting nor posting over the next 8 - 10 days. If I paint anything half decent at club tomorrow, I may prepare a post in draft form to post later, just to keep the blog active, but if I do not manage it, the blog may well remain silent for a couple of weeks, but I will be back!

I found some honesty at the end of a track I use to fetch the morning paper each day, and with the sun on it it really asked to be painted.
I wanted to be as loose as possible, but I still did a good drawing so that I had some idea of where I was going. I was back to using Fabriano Artistico on the block for this painting, as I had quite a lot to carry, and it seemed easiest.

Then, just an attempt to put wash on wash to try to capture the delicacy of the seed pods as well as their slightly distressed appearance from the continual traffic along the lane.

I did use a drawing pen to mask out the outer rims of some of the seed pods with masking fluid as I wanted them to be sharply white against the background. I also tried to remember to take the background colour into some of the pods where they were torn by the weather. I also tried to remember to leave a small highlight on some of the seeds to help make them more 3 dimensional. I think, on looking at the pictures, that maybe they are a tad strong in colour. A bit more muted would be better, but its too late now as its packed ready for the exhibition.
I tried not to fiddle too much, to leave areas without detail, and plenty of lost edges.
Finally, I tried to strengthen the background in the middle of the painting to push the Honesty forward and give it more umph, by creating a greater contrast between the two.

My apologies as I forgot to take a photo of the finished work before framing it, so the next two photos may not be that brilliant.

The finished painting is about 26cm x 36 cm with a 7cm mount in a 40cm x 50cm frame