Cyclamen 2nd part - Ciclamini 2a parte

Ciclamini 28x38 cm, carta Fabriano artistico 300gr

Cyclamen, A loose floral painting from this winter

(you can see the process here in my earlier post).

This time I'm happy with how I kept the white for the light

 - even if I think that a terracotta pot could do a nice contrast! 

Have to wait for the autumn to get fresh flowers again!

Ciclamini, l'ho dipinto quest'inverno

(per vedere il processo nel mail precedente clicca qui ).

Questa volta sono contenta di aver conservato tanto bianco per dare luce 

- anche se penso che riproverò con dei vasi in terracotta.

Aspetterò i fiori freschi l'autunno prossimo!

Watercolour studies - more pears!

If you have seen my earlier posts (here and here) you can see how my paintings developed, getting simplier!

I also changed the accent colours, choosing from the real ones I would see.

 I painted many more, but already sent them as postcards! 

At the end I ran out of the ready cut  paper - and used some Canson 200 gsm paper for the last pears( as the one above). It dried much faster, and doesn't have the structure of the Fabraiano Artistico coldpressed watercolour paper, but it's also interesting.

Now - it was time to stop!

But I will definitely repeat this painting session as an excercise soon. I also recommend it as a watercolour lesson to everybody: choose a  simple subject, paint small size and repeat several times!

It's very meditative and zen - and you learn a lot!

Playing with watercolours... Summer colours!

Alcea Rosea, watercolour 24x30cm on Fabriano Artistico 300grs paper

I have either been very busy or very lazy lately, so it's definitely time for a new post!

I painted this hollyhock (Alcea Rosea ) from my fantasy, last week,

when the flowers in my garden were already suffering the heat of July...

And this is what I did first, an underwash just playing with some colours. 

To be honest I wasn't really sure what it was going to develop into!

And yes, I admit I was definitely inspired by Jean Haines, if you don't know her work, click on the link for lots of inspiration.

 work in progress

Lesson 5: Play with your watercolours!

 Take your material and start playing - it's easy and fun!

Start with any piece of watercolour paper and use clean water to wet it with your brush. Check the wetness of the paper by turning it and looking at it from the border : it should be damp all over, without pools!

Now choose 2 or 3 colours  and start dropping colours onto the paper! You can mix some colours, if you want, or just let them mix on the paper. 

Let the colours spread and see how beautiful the result is without  any effort!  This is the basics of wet-in-wet painting and You will enjoy playing like this even if you are a more experienced painter!

This is Wet in wet - It's easy!

 Wet-in-wet is one of the basic watercolour techniques - so now practice!!

This post will be continued...