Learning to Paint – Spring Magnolia

Keira and I were walking home from school yesterday and we noticed how blue the sky was, and how many magnolias are in flower just now.

Keira and I were walking home from school yesterday and we noticed how blue the sky was, and how many magnolias are in flower just now. When we got home I had a go at trying to capture the hints of pink and mauve in the magnolia flower, and combine it with the very blue sky. I’ve tried to use a little white space to indicate where the edges of the leaves might be. Importantly I made no attempt to try and capture realism, just a thought of what we’d seen and talked about. There’s something about this picture I quite like – I hope you find something in it to enjoy too.

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Learning to Paint – Leapday

Around a dozen friends gathered in London yesterday to take advantage of Leapday. We were hosted by the very fabulous Coopers Natural Foods. Amongst other things we practiced drawing and coaching, and we got some fantastic water colour tips from V…

Around a dozen friends gathered in London yesterday to take advantage of Leapday. We were hosted by the very fabulous Coopers Natural Foods. Amongst other things we practiced drawing and coaching, and we got some fantastic water colour tips from Vandy Massey.

The image below shows one of the busy shelves at Coopers. It also shows two pencil drawings I made of a pencil. The one at the top left was before being coached, the one shown bottom right was the after result. In this image you can also see two examples of me playing with wet paint on a wet and dry background. I had not tried painting wet on wet before yesterday and the results interested me. The final part of the image is a grape, painted using the wet on wet technique.

I really enjoyed our Leapday session and I hope I don’t have to wait another four years to experience such a useful fun day again.

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Learning to Paint – Tree in Blue

I was visiting a friend earlier this week and I found myself on a train with a tiny table sticking from the train wall near my seat. It was just big enough to balance a paintbox on so I had a paint, and this tree appeared. The picture took around …

I was visiting a friend earlier this week and I found myself on a train with a tiny table sticking from the train wall near my seat. It was just big enough to balance a paintbox on so I had a paint, and this tree appeared. The picture took around ten minutes. There’s something about it I quite like, and Carole thinks it’s my best effort yet.

This is a small (A5) water colour on 300gsm paper. I used some neat brushes which Vandy Massey recommended to me. They contain their own supply of water so they are ideal for painting on the move. That said I’m struggling to get the balance of paint and water right, practice practice practice.

I’m going to try some more tree work and see where it takes me.

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