Tuesday 18 October 2011

Having Fun

I have beeen browsing my copy of Ann Blockley's latest book....'Experimental Flowers In Watercolour' (published by Batsford) and thought it was time to have a bit of fun throwing paint at paper in a reasonably controlled way.
True to my expectations it was great fun and I will definitely have another go. I did a quick drawing of some Foxgloves so the I would  have a vaguely recognisable flower painting at the end of the session, and with plenty od water and paint I loosely put in the flowers. I sprayed them whilst wet which gave a bit of bleeding which was good, and then I really let go and splashed great amounts of fairly dark mixtures of paint around the flowers. I think the idea is to be very free but still in control!!
The resulting background, I though was fab and am looking forward to doing it again. I think maybe I should have spent a little more time in contemplation between the processes, but I was afraid to tighten up again if I didn't tackle it swiftly and uninhibitedly.
I used lots of indian ink, brown and white acrylic ink and plenty of Venetian Violet and Paynes Grey and Indigo.
Word of warning....wear a good large apron. My splashing went everywhere and I had to put my trousers pretty quickly into the wash as they were black and became covered in white and magenta speckles!!

 
The foxgloves do look quite controlled, but they are in fact quite loosely and quickly painted. This might be more obvious if you click on the image and enlarge it. Painted on Centenaire  300gm Rough paper, 12 X 16 ins.

2 comments:

  1. It looks great! I have another of Ann Blockley's books, so I know how good she is with backgrounds!
    I love your 'more controlled' paintings too, glad I found your blog!

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  2. Another good'un Yvonne. I looked at her book together with the Collins one on textures and both are very intriguing. I might invest in at least one of them

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