The first to send a post this month is Lesley M, she says, "I'm attaching my Poppies together with the compositional sketch - to prove to Bob I do take notice. Unfortunately transferring it to watercolour paper meant that some things had to move. The original plan had been for quite detailed leaves but ............. Billy (Showell) suggested, in one tutorial, tracing leaves if they're difficult, and poppy leaves are. So I tried and stained bits of the paper. I know I should have started again but I'm too mean to do that so they ended up much larger and much looser to try and cover the stains!
I'm torn with what to do next. I quite fancy trying some line and wash and really try to be loose but I also bought a Calla Lily at Tesco on Friday and it's so beautiful. Watch for the next instalment!"
I don't think you need to worry one jot what anyone thinks Lesley, the main thing is to enjoy doing it. So, what if you traced a bit of leaf, didn't Vermeer use a camera obscura? Some think so, but even if he did, how did he manage to paint the light as he did? Or produce such beautiful brushwork? Degas is said to have employed an architectural draughtsman to assist him with the background, when he was painting Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, as he found it extremely difficult, but his portrayal of the acrobat is amazing. One thing you should take note of is to accept that everyone thinks that your work is great, and just keep doing it, and experimenting, and painting whatever inspires you most.
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Nice poppies, very delicate. Certainly don't worry about tracing, I do it all the time (I have to, my drawing skills are minimal!)
ReplyDeleteI think the leaves have worked particularly well, I like the fact that one goes of the page. If anything I would make the flowers slightly stronger, especialy thefully open one. Keep up the good work. Lesley
ReplyDeleteI didn't actually end up tracing the leaves, in attempting to I stained the paper with chlorophyll, the only thing to do then was to sketch them in to ensure the stains were inside the leaf and could be painted over and used to be texture!!!
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