Small Studies

The Farmers' Market will open in just 2 short weeks so I have been spending some time doing some small (5 x 7inch) studies to have something new for the season. I am often using a subject that I have used for a previous painting. I am using my favourite pen to do the drawing and because these are so small, I do not feel bad about loosing a few if a wash goes wrong. They are fun to do and are definitely a product of my daily drawing project.

Artists Circle

The artists Circle (a painting group based in the Kingston/Greenwood area) asked me to do a workshop with them on painting florals. My previous two postings showed some of the preparatory work I did for this class.  I arrived at the community centre to be greeted by this fabulous display of spring flowers. I always enjoy working with this group. They are keen to try new methods and enthusiastic about painting in general.

Getting started

We started with a fun exercise to get used to the idea of drawing with the bush loaded with water and then dropping paint into the wet pattern. Try writing your name this way.

I dropped blue paint on one side and yellow on the other and then tipped and tilted the board to blend the colours. You get some beautiful colour mixes that could only happen with a wet in wet technique.





Planning the painting

These little thumbnails are always where I start. The top 3 are for the first demonstration of pink magnolias. The last 2 (bottom centre and bottom left) are the planning for my afternoon demonstration.






Pink Magnolias

I started with the middle blossom. I wet the whole blossom shape and then dropped paint on to the bottom and let it flow upwards. I controlled the flow by drying the edges of the petals with paper towel. I wanted people to be able to see where the wet part of the paper was while I worked so I tinted the water with blue which worked very well with these particular flowers.

Pink Magnolias (10 x 14 inches)

After the initial wash had dried, I added some shadow details to enhance the forms. I may work on this one a little more latter on but I like the simplicity of this painting as it is.

Cosmos

I started a painting of cosmos in the afternoon using the same methods described in my previous posting. I could turn these into poppies - I'll have to think about that.

Participants paintings

Well done everyone. We had a great day