Roses

Hi there, how are you?

The other half bought me a small bunch of roses last week (with no prompting or putting them in the trolly myself) I tried drawing them.

I don’t know why roses are so difficult to draw, for some reason I have a huge mental block when I try.

I’ve been staring and squinting at them trying to work out the shadows and going cross-eyed looking at the many petals.

I drew them out with a pencil then coloured in the shadows with watercolour using the colour of the paper as the highlight. The paper is blue but it kind of works.

The purple rose looks quite dreamy on this paper, I like the effect.

It’s probably the best I’m going to do this time as they’re starting to droop.

This is a peregrine falcon, I painted him and placed him on a little card for Fathers day this weekend.

We each made him a card, it’s fun to see the different little artworks on the mantelpiece.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Loose Watercolour Flowers

watercolour peony esther peck class — Watercolour peony from an Esther Peck class

Hi there, how are you?

I really like the idea of loose washy watercolour flowers. They are of course a lot harder to paint than they look. I thought I’d give it a try.

I checked out the skillshare classes (yes I still have a week or two left so I’m cramming them in). There’s a lot of this kind of thing on there but nothing that really resonated. Then I saw a class by Esther Peck. Her style is a cross between watercolour painting and Chinese brush painting, each petal being its own stroke(s).

I love peonies so took the peony class and painted lots of stylised peonies. This is just one of the pages I’ve painted. (see above)

The rose class you would think would be a lot easier but getting my head around these has been hard work. I know they are a lot of c shapes in a circle but getting them to look like a rose oofff.

I have pages and pages of terrible practice roses; these were the best of a bad bunch.

stylised roses — Stylised watercolour roses

Talking about bunches I also tried to paint roses in small bunches; not a bad start but they need more work.

watercolour rose sprays — Watercolour rose sprays

I liked the loose flower class (teaching some wild and some filler flowers) of course once I reached the poppies I couldn’t resist. I like how these turned out and will probably paint lots more because they are just a fun doodle to do when I don’t want to think too hard hehehe.

loose watercolour poppy — Loose watercolour poppy

In the garden we have small drifts of hardy geraniums, the stalks start to get a bit straggly at this time of year so I gave them a hair cut and put the flowers I’d cut off into a jam jar, no need to waste good flowers. They were perfect models for painting indoors when it was raining.

This is one of the few plants the slugs don’t eat so if were lucky they will flower again before winter sets in, more for me to draw.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Perfect Gifts For Mother’s Day

Hi there, how are you?

Last week was Mother’s Day and I was very blessed to have received flowers and a shiny new orchid plant, (also boxes of chocolates but we won’t mention those as they are no longer with us, shhh) Thank you kids.

The white orchid we had just lost its last bloom so that was lucky. The bunch of flowers contained roses and gerberas, both were stunning, which t draw first?

Roses are always tricky, the buds I can manage but fully open roses hmm. It didn’t turn out too bad, slightly better than usual which makes me happy.

The gerberas “oooff” I drew quite a few and these were the ones that turned out the best.

I have decided I like drawing orchids, I’m not saying I’m brilliant at drawing them but I do enjoy drawing them. I think it will be interesting to see if having some colour to the flowers changes the way I put the shadows into them.

Beautiful and useful what more could you want.

Thanks for stopping by today. Till next time, have fun x