This week’s painting was surprisingly more difficult as one often thinks of flowers as ‘easy’, & en principe so they should be-no straight lines, or architectural features, windows, doors, roofs etc etc

However ,it was new to be using masking fluid & working out how much to apply & what to use for an implement- an old brush, the end of a pen – anything that wasn’t going to be ruined by the fluid as it has to be washed off thoroughly etc. Then there had to be time to let it dry, & again it depended on how much you used, how thickly it was applied- all to be learnt for another time. It is useful to apply when trying to leave some clear white shapes- allowing for some nice, free flowing colours in the background, without spoiling those crisp edges.

It helps to gently draw in the delicate stems & buds so that you can paint them in later. Then you can use your imagination to wet the paper around the flowers/stems- in this case it was a dreamy blue, merging into the greens for the leaves- again all loose shapes which you can define a bit later. Drop on some salt in the wet background, which always leaves some interesting shapes & textures & let it all dry a bit. Then you can paint around the greenery to indicate leaves, & a thin brush, ideally a rigger, for the pinky stems. Again that trick of painting a thin wavy line down the middle of the leaves, & diluting with water & dabbing with tissues can give a nice textural feel to it all. The same works for a thin line for the edge of the petals in a faint bluey/purple grey diluted with clear water will give an idea of the petal shapes.

The time disappears & we don’t have time to indulge in the second painting I have brought along- hazy buttercups, so they will have to wait for another day. Maybe just as well as switching from hazy blues to sunny yellows might have been a bit much.

There will now be a two week gap before we tackle Tourtour in the clouds – quite a different subject & quite a challenge - on we go!