A little bit late with this blog as I had to race off to a local café to drop off some paintings to hang for a few weeks or so. The enterprising owner is always on the lookout for new ideas, & wants a kind of back drop for a book signing later in the week. I’m more than happy to leave them there for a while instead of propped up in a corner at home! Hopefully she might be up for a repeat of the paintings expo that had to get cancelled this April due to Covid - & that gives me time to perhaps assemble some other artists/friends to present a joint Anglo Artists exhibition next year, who knows - we’ll see.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t a happy bunny with my version of the sunflower field, but thought I’d take my feeble effort along anyway to show how watercolours can go very wrong…. Perhaps not in the mood, but perfectly described what happens when the colours get muddy, perhaps not in the mood, perhaps in a rush, who knows? Anyway, I had also taken some cards of my sunflowers in different versions-a large exuberant version with a dense/textured centre, a simple single flower, & a posy of several together using pen & wash. Everyone decided what attracted them, & as ever, once they had chosen, heads were down while choosing colours, style etc. Only two people persevered with the large sunflower field & some lovely paintings emerged - full of light & colour- envy, envy- but a lesson learnt for me.

All the others played around with different versions of single heads/leaves, & it was fun to see how absorbed everyone got trying the effects of shade/water, & the effects of creating a textured centre- every painting quite different. However, during this process we talked about the effects of ink, which was in one of my cards & so that is next week’s project. It can be fun to try using a pen for emphasis, & experimenting with water and some soluble ink pens- the way it can dissolve into some nice shading- so we shall see what next week brings- watch this space…..