Drawing Peonies Till The Last Petals Fall

Orange peony in watercolour & watercolour pencil

Hi there, how are you?

I’ve spent the week drawing and painting the peonies I’d bought last week. It’s been really interesting watching the flowers change each day.

They stated off as deep pink balls of tight petals, as the petals unfurled they changed to an orangy pink.

Above the flower fully open with loads of lovely petals.

As the flowers aged the colour faded completely, they look like totally different flowers and were a soft yellow.

Mine is a little too yellow as I struggled with the shadows but you can see how the petals are starting to loose their shape.

One day I came down and all of the petals were on the counter, just a brave few petals hanging on, I thought the shapes were really interesting so drew them any way.

The first one I’d started in graphite but it was very smudgy so it was finished off with a with a black coloured pencil.

dead peony in pencil — Dead peony dawn with coloured pencil

The second one is drawn with brush pens, one grey to make the shapes and a black one for the lines. I always love the graphic look of anything drawn with brush pens.

It’s fascinating to follow these flowers and document all of the changes they go through and of course there are lots of photos for future drawings.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Till next time, have fun x

I Bought Some Peonies

Watercolour peony

After watching Renee Mullers paint peonies last week I really wanted to draw and paint some myself and as luck would have it the super market was selling single blooms so I bought 3 peonies. They’re not cheep but I’m determined to get my moneys worth.

The first two painted with watercolour, one with and one without line work. I think I prefer the first one without the lines but you have to try these things to see which one works best.

Since I’m unable to make a smooth wash on this paper (the watercolour resists the sizing in some places) I’ve decided to work with it and not against it and make very scrubby washes and sprinkling salt oner the top. It gives a nice effect as long as I don’t use too much salt.

2 peony watercolour peony — A watercolour of 2 peonies

This next one was drawn with watercolour pencils. The intension was to go over it with water and move the colours together but after trying this on one of the leaves decided I preferred it as it was originally and left it alone.

Fountain pen drawings are always fun and quite meditative, again I liked the way it looks so didn’t wash the ink out with water like I usually would, maybe I’ll do that with another drawing.

fountain-pen-peony — A peony drawn with fountain pen

To make good use of my fancy peonies I’ve also been taking lots of photos so my camera roll is full of many photos like this and many more, definitely getting my moneys worth here.

camera roll peony photos — camera roll of peony photos

The more the flowers open up the better they look so I’m trying to take lots of photos every day to capture all of the lovely stages of opening.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Till next time, have fun x

Iris Studies

iris in water soluable oil iris in water soluble oil

Hi there, how are you?

It’s been a while, we’ve been having interesting times here.

Every month we visit our aged relative who lives roughly 200 miles away, to fill up the cupboards and freezer with food, talk to carers, nurses and the like and generally make sure everything is working as it should.

This time I “decided” to trip over my own feet and whack my head on the train platform floor.

Don’t worry I’m fine, the lovely first aider patched me up and apart from some bent glasses and the beautiful black eye I sported for about a week after no real harm was done.

Whilst there I realised Renee Mueller was selling her floret class half price and couldn’t resist buying it.

I’m only a few exercises through it at the moment but I’m really enjoying it.

Renee is using peonies and though I love them they’re not in the shops just yet here and after perusing the flowers at the supermarket came away with a lovely bunch of iris’s reduced to £1!

She starts by taking lots of fancy photos of her flowers on lots of lovely painted backgrounds, something I’ve never thought to do before.

I don’t have many painted backgrounds so just used coloured paper instead.

There’s lots of sketching Renee uses charcoal but I cant deal with the mess so I’ve made a few very loose pencil and watercolour sketches and also this next one drawn with a purple biro.

This makes me want to find all of the other coloured ball point pens in the house to have a play.

This is the photo taken on a pink paper background, I think it’s quite an interesting colour combination.

Next colour palette swatches for the painting. In this class Renee was using oil paint, I don’t have any but I do have water mixable oil paints so I’m using them for the first time. They’re not as smelly as traditional oils though there is still some odour just not the awful turps and solvents.

After making the swatches there was a fair amount of paint left on the palette so I decided to take an iris out of the vase and paint it to use up the remaining pant (see image at the top of the post.)

It’s not perfect but considering I’ve never used oil paint before I’m calling this one a win.

Painting with oils is not my favourite thing, maybe I could use gouache as apparently they work is a similar way.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Till next time, have fun x

Colourful Frogs And Toads

Little brown frog.

Hi there, how are you?

The Easter holiday has passed and as always there is lots of family stuff going on so drawing was on the back burner for a while.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to draw so I opened up Pinterest and picked the first thing I saw.

Frogs. When I get stuck just starting is half the battle.

There were also a few toads, they make me smile because they look so grumpy but I’m sure they’re smiling on the inside hehehe.

I also wanted to use my brush pen as I hadn’t used it for a some time, must be missing those thick black inky lines.

I’m sure I’ve drawn this little brown frog before (above) he’s ever so cute with huge eyes, I just couldn’t resist drawing him again.

As usual its drawn on cartridge paper and it wasn’t going to be a smooth wash so I sprinkled salt over the wet paint, possibly I went a little too far?

The green toad (didn’t catch his name) was a fun grumpy little guy and for some reason ended up with a bright red/orange background then I added salt and splashes of blue paint which turned green with all of the yellow already there.

I do like the contrast of the complimentary colours.

I’m imagining this little guy to be very small because it looks like he’s sitting on a bamboo stalk. He’s quite well camouflaged, maybe if he was facing the stalk hiding the blue undersides he would be completely hidden.

tiny frog on bamboo — Tiny frog on a bamboo stalk

This next one took an interesting turn. I love the toad (a horned toad maybe?) very dramatic colours that mixed beautifully on the page to give some lovely results but who knows where I was going with the background!

As I said I like the colours so I’ll leave it alone and maybe it will spark future ideas.

dramatic horned toad — Dramatic horned toad

So this week I have been playing with colour both complimentary and analogous, throwing salt every where and playing with my brush pen having serious amounts of fun. Couldn’t be better.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Till next time, have fun x

Quince Cuttings

red quince watercolour Red quince painted with watercolour.

Hi there, how are you?

Whilst cutting the hedge this week and I accidentally cut the top of the quince bush as well. Oops!

I collected all the stems with flowers on and placed them in a vase (jam jar) as it was a shame to throw them away.

These tiny twigs were the models for this week, experimenting and drawing them with different media and tools.

Below I was trying to add shade only with hatching using a fine liner, working out where the different tones belong is always difficult.

I’m not sure it is completely successful but the practice is good.

The flowers above were drawn the same way but i didn’t really think it was working so I used watercolour to liven it up a little.

red quince fine liner — Red quince drawn with a fine liner.

Still playing with the new fude nibbed fountain pen. It’s quite unpredictable at the moment, although I do like the effect. Hopefully I’ll get used to it eventually.

The ink is drawn out with a damp paint brush to add a little shading.

red quince fude pen — Red quince drawn with a fude nibbed fountain pen.

The last one is a complete experiment using a ¾ inch flat brush to try and create the shapes. Sometimes it is easy to get lost in the details and I wondered if it was possible to use a big square brush to paint small round flowers.

It’s very loose and more of a suggestion of flowers but I think its recognisable.

red quince flat brush — Red quince painted with a ¾ inch flat brush

The garden is now starting to wake up and now the hedge has been cut the birds are free to build their little nests any where they like and I’ve had a lot of fun with my accidental cuttings.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Till next time, have fun x

Mothers Day Chrysanthemums

watercolour chrysanthmum chrysanthemum painted with watercolour

Hi there, how are you?

It was mothers day last week here in the UK, I received a very lovely bunch of flowers.

The intention was to draw all of the flowers but by the time I got around to the drawing most had sadly expired.

The chrysanthemums did survive so I’ve contented myself with using these as models.

They are painted pink although in reality they are more of dark wine, a colour I find very hard to mix, so the flowers above in watercolour look quite a bit more delicate than they are.

Playing with my new fude nib I drew some in ink. Working out how to use this pen is still a bit of a learning curve and surprisingly enjoyable to draw with.

chrysanthemum drawn with a fude fountain pen chrysanthemum

This next one was drawn with watercolour pencils, washed over with water to dilute them then painted over again with watercolour as they were too pale.

Then wondered what it would look like on a dark background so painted one around the outside to find out.

mixed media chrysanthemum — A chrysanthemum drawn using mixed media.

This last one is a favourite way to sketch things, using a brush pen filled with grey ink to draw out the shapes then outline with a black brush pen. The finer lines are filled in with the back of the fude pen nib

it’s a nice quick way to sketch things out using big shapes and outlining for the details.

brush pen chrysanthemum — chrysanthemum drawn with brush pen.

A most useful mothers day gift and even though the real ones don’t last these will live on in my sketch book.

Happy memories.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Till next time, have fun x

Fuchsia Flowers In Spring

fucshiar-wc Fuchsia painted with watercolour.

Hi there, how are you?

Just before autumn crashed in last year I brought the fuchsia plants inside. They didn’t grow too big and if left outside they would die as they’re not hardy.

I didn’t expect anything from them but to hopefully keep them alive long enough for the warmer weather to come around then plant them back in the garden.

Surprisingly this week two of the plants flowered so we now have fuchsia flowers in spring.

I’ve had lots of fun playing in my sketchbook painting and drawing them.

Using some watercolour pencil I scribbled over the page to give an “interesting” background then drew the flower with a muji fountain pen, the ink isn’t waterproof so I had to paint the flower in avoiding the lines as best as I could, then decided I hated it and painted over it with Prussian blue watercolour.

It’s a bit scrappy but less offensive to me now.

Next I painted the flowers first and drew over it with the pen, this meant I didn’t have to be so careful with the ink.

The background was coloured with a watercolour pencil. The sketchbook is a lot more subtle than this image, sometimes the scanner does weird things all by itself.

Fuchsia wcp1 — Fuchsia, drawn in ink & watercolour.

I have a new fude fountain pen and I’m trying to get used to it so drew some flowers to test it out.

It’s very strange and a bit unpredictable at the moment, the thickness of the line depends on the angle at which yo hold it so you need to know how to manoeuvre it.

I’ve mostly been using it on its end or drawing with the back of the nib, it will take a while to get used to it I think.

Fuchsia muji — Fuchsia drawn in ink with a fude pen

Fuchsia fude- — Fuchsia als drawn in ink with a fude pen.

Mostly I’ve bee playing this week, testing and trying things out, it helps to keep things interesting.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Till next time, have fun x

A Roar-some Birthday Card

roarsome dinosaur card front A roar-some dinosaur card front

A Roar-some Birthday Card Hi there, how are you?

It’s the younglings birthday this week, time to make a card.

I’d seen a cool saying “have a roar-some birthday” and a dinosaur seemed to fit the caption. (We do like our punny cards)

Having never drawn a dinosaur before I would need to do some homework.

A few black and white sketches to find a pose; almost used the bottom sketch, I quite liked it.

roarsome dinosaur black & white — A roar-some dinosaur black & white sketch.

Then I found this guy, he looks a lot more cheerful, like he’s wishing someone a roar-some birthday hehehe.

roarsome dinosaur 1st sketch — roar-some dinosaur 1st sketch, a bit scrappy but a good start.

After looking at my sketch I realised there was something very wrong with the anatomy. Looking through our olde dinosaur encyclopedia and finding a photo of a t-Rex skeleton with a ropey illustration I worked out the problem and made a few more sketches of the offending parts and a new improved dinosaur was drawn.

roarsome dinosaur parts — roar-some dinosaur parts

The sketches were made on cartridge paper and the watercolour on cellulose watercolour paper which had some pro’s and cons, the paint moves differently, watercolour paper has more texture and the colours are a little brighter.

I used the texture to my advantage, rubbing gently over the top with a watercolour pencil gives an effect of scales. Dinosaurs are very big on scales.

It was lots of fun drawing something so totally different to normal and brushing up on my dino facts.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Till next time, have fun x