MAY 2020 (14)

I have had two fantastic botanical paintings arrive from Lesley M.  The first is an Iris taken from a book by Billy Showell:-

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Lesley says, "For my birthday Rae bought me a Billy Showell book, The A to Z of Flower Portraits and the DVD which goes with it and the dogs bought me two new brushes, one an Escoda Optimo is wonderful.  It holds so much paint but has such a fine point I rarely had to dip it in the paint to do all the veining on the Iris - I love it!!!  The Iris is one flower head from Billy's book.  I thought I'd do just one flower first and try a whole flower, stem and buds next time. I've not had time to watch the DVD yet but hopefully I will soon."  I think this is beautifully done and I know that combining yellow and blue (or purple) on a single petal in watercolour can be very tricky so I am very impressed.  Do enlarge it so that you can see the amount of detail in the veining.  By the way I looked up the Escoda Optima brush, and Jacksons have them! (Not that I am thinking of returning to watercolour, it is much too demanding).

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This is what Lesley says about this painting.  "the Aquilegia was a nightmare.  It took me a whole afternoon to draw it and rub it back and then spent the following day in the garden.  When I got back to it half of it's petals had dropped off and I couldn't see much if any of my drawing at all.  So I got another one, and drew it again but this time on cartridge paper and tried to trace it on to watercolour paper using the Frisk Tracedown.  It wasn't overly successful - half of it hadn't gone through and needed drawing in again and some smudges where I'd rested my hand wouldn't rub out.  I then started painting it and put a wash on the petals, then put the veining in and then a second wash.  Unfortunately it turned out far too pale so I added further washes which sort of hid the veining.  Then to crown it all when I photographed it it turned our much paler and much more blue than the original which is a quite purple/blue!" I am sure everyone will be able to relate to her experience,  but I think that her perseverance is rewarded by this study.  I also think that I prefer it to the iris, it has a freshness about it, see what you think.  

I too have tried to use tracedown and had the same experience as Lesley, but when I was on a course with Ann Swan, the coloured pencil artist, I found she uses a light box to copy her original drawings onto the best paper.  Most art suppliers carry them, they come in various sizes and thanks to LED they are much lighter, slimmer and cheaper, than they used to be.  I have a very old fashioned one that I bought for stained glass work, but I have also used it for transferring a drawing onto paper.  You may think this is a cheat, but it can make transferring a drawing easier and quicker (so that you can get on with the best part) and it also prevents the need for lots of erasing that can spoil the surface of the paper for watercolour.  

I am sure that the sharp eyed of you will have noticed the slight colour shift on the quotes that I put on the blog.  This is because I cannot exactly replicate the background colour when I cut and paste them from members e-mails.  As I am not a touch typist I find that this saves me a lot of time, typing and proof reading, and hope that you will forgive it.