More Daniel Smith Colours

Having ordered the previously mentioned Quinachridone Purple and added to the order 4 other colours including Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green (BS) from the SAA, I was pretty keen to try them out. I have been having a bit of a love affair with the deep purples and blues since the Fuchsia painting, so chose these colours for my painting at AVA this week. The subject this week was leaves and berries, so I had a trial run with some blackberries and then painted elderberries during the session.

In both cases I painted the background first, wetting areas of the paper with clean water , and then dropping paint into the wet areas. I made sure that I used enough paint to allow the colours to run down the page, but made sure I retained plenty of white areas. Where the paint did not move quite so well, I blew through a straw, sending the paint like twiggy branches across the sheet. Also in both cases, I used the same sorts of colours as I was going to use for the berries.

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In this case the background colours are Indigo, Ultramarine Blue and Quinachridone Magenta. Once the background was dry, I made a limited sketch where I thought the fruits and leaves should be, just to check that the composition would be ok, and then I had great fun painting the leaves and berries. I was careful to place both leaves and berries both over the background and on the white patches. Hopefully, this gives clear fresh colours in the foreground and more muted tones in the background.

In this painting, the process was exactly the same, but the background colours are Qinachridone purple, Phthalo Green and Phthalo Blue, and the berries are combinations of the same colours with plenty of Opera Rose, especially in the foreground fruits.

This large bush grows in my neighbour's front garden and is called I believe 'Sambuca Negro' It has the most beautiful delicate pink flowers on it before the fruits start to appear. As there were flowers as well as fruits this morning, I included a couple of flower heads in the top LH corner. I used salt to create the shapes and when this was removed, I painted the lighter side with tiny spots of Opera Pink and white acrylic gouache.

The only part of the painting that I am not pleased with, are the stems which will have to be altered as they look odd, appearing to have flowers one end and fruit the other, but I am sure that will be easily rectified.

I am sure there will be more Quinachridone Purple things appearing in this space!!

The blackberries were painted on the heavy weight 'Leonardo' and I must admit to getting more used to it and it may not be as awful as I first thought. ( How can it be awful when so many lovely painters use it all the time!!!)

The Elderberries was painted on Fabriano Artistico Extra white.
Both paintings measure approx 33 x 23 cms

Hope you have enjoyed looking.