Tuesday 29 December 2009

Watercolour landscapes and more .....

T This is the watercolour book I've recently bought by Paul Talbot-Greaves called 30-Minute Landscapes, and I've been having a play ........

Now don't be ridiculous........! Of course I didn't paint this - it is a photo my daughter took recently of the sunset over the church in her village of Roborough. I WILL have a go, but the reason I have shown you the picture is because I used the silouette for the one I did paint.


I followed one of the 30 minute exercises and finished up with this - I was quite pleased for a first effort, and will certainly do more. The colours used are cadmium red, cadmium yellow, cobalt blue, french ultramarine and permanent rose. Paper size is 9" x 6"
The instructions are very clear and easy to follow, and although my painting looks nothing like the one in the book, and took a bit longer than 30 minutes, all the elements are there to catch the mood of a sunset.

Another book I bought recently is this one, by Linda Ravenscroft. I am still very much into fairies (I also bought her How to draw and paint FAIRYLAND) Both of them are amazing. Linda uses all sorts of colouring media in the books, and the technique exercises, which is what I am doing here are all laid out step by step.
Here I've drawn leaf shapes (from the book) first, then added watercolour, but I didn't have the exact paints - it still looks okay though. This is the wet on wet technique, but I have a bit of wet on dry at the top left hand side - that's what comes of 'fiddling' after the paper has dried! Looks okay though......
Now I've added the colour for the leaves, and added the veins using paintbrush.

Had a go at painting just leaves onto the white paper (wet on wet) and added the veins with a brown pigma pen. I should be using 140lb cold press paper but this sketchbook is hot press paper and very smooth, so whatever I do it will look different anyway (you can imagine it looks nothing like Linda's in her book - but I am learning a lot!!)
Just finishing up the paint with these two leaves, but they look so different on that background - which is 140lb cold press paper which has already been painted with acrylic paint. Delighted with these, you can almost pick them off the paper! (I drew them from leaves from my garden)
Must do some more using watercolour on top of acrylic paint.
I'll post again as soon as I have had an opportunity to try out some more exercises.

Monday 21 December 2009

Painterly Skies

I don't know if it has anything to do with this cold snap we are having at the moment, but over the last few days I can't stop taking pix of the sky - sunrise and sunset, and some in between.
Last night's sunset ... You can just see my house through those trees



Sorry about the telegraph wire ....!


View from my workroom window (you can just see the image of my camera bottom right!)

If only I could make my watercolours do this ......

Sunrise ....


and again...



I've joined a painting group, and ordered a book from Amazon. Watch this space!!

Monday 14 December 2009

November & December Swaps



This is an Arthur Rackham drawing entitled Fairies in Hiding and was the inspiration suggested by Pat for the Calendar Girls in November.

I went with the title and decided to advertise for some fairies! I made this card for Carol McFee using my embellisher. The tree bark is made from painted crumpled brown paper.



This was the inspiration for December supplied for the Calendar Girls by Neki and is entitled Fractals.



Again, I used my embellisher, and meshed wool roving and silk waste into black felt until it loosly resembled the inspiration. This I made for Pat.

Unfortunately, the Calendar Girls will be disbanding at the end of the year, but if you want to see what the others did with these inspirations, do click on the Logo on the right hand side.


The theme for the Quiltie this month with Unlimited Textiles was Christmas (naturally) and this wonderful 5"x5" was made for me by Pam Jones in Wales.

She used the stitch and slash technique to make the tree, and has also beaded it - it really looks quite 3D, and is just delightful.



This is my interpretation of the Christmas theme, that I made for Linda Doughty.

My embellisher came out once again and I used wool roving onto white felt, then added a sequined sheer. I then free stitched the tree using a black and silver metallic thread. My idea of Christmas is going for walks in crispy weather and getting home to a lovely glass of mulled wine!! This is probably the only 'white Christmas' I will see .....!


Finally, a few Christmas Postcards for some friends .......












I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and look forward to a happy healthy and creative New Year. Thanks for dropping by - see you in 2010!