A time for experimenting, with paper, paint and pears.

I've had some fun, experimenting with paper, paint and pears.

The paper was my sample pack from the very lovely St Cuthbert's Mill.
I usually use their Saunders Waterford Rough paper for my watercolours, but these are all versions of their delightful Somerset Range.

The paint used was delivered by the amazing Derwent Graphik Line Painters.
One of the following pears was painted in traditional watercolour. I'm sure you'll be able to tell which it was.

The pears were from photos kindly provided by Kay Smith. You can see her blog HERE

Why post experimentation? Why not just the worked up paintings?
I believe it's because in experimentation we grow as artists - and for people who follow and view my blog, perhaps you'd like to see that there is a period of simply playing with paint, followed by growth. It might encourage you to try that yourself and not to be shy about it.

So here, you see me experiment and play. I hope you do the same too!

and if you'd like to see them all together, here they are:-

You can see which version of Somerset paper I used in the larger pics.
I hope you have enjoyed looking at these - and I hope you're inspired to go experiment too!

Pears Two

Here in this first picture, you can see I have propped my drawing board up - on the sink.
This is important, because if you use pouring as a technique, it is going to be messy!
And as I am the one who clears up after myself - I try to make life easy.

I wet two thirds of the paper from left to right and poured my colour on, so it runs down the page, like so.


Then I pour my second and third colours on, so I have some contrast in my background to these pears. I haven't said which colours, but you can see roughly which - this way, if you are tempted to play along, you can use whatever you have in your palette and not be worried about having the "right" colour.


Here is what the painting looks like the right way up once it has dried - and before I do any more to it.
If you leave your painting to dry on the board, make sure the bottom of the board is dry. I had to wipe mine down with kitchen paper.



and here is how messy the kitchen sink got! So this is why I say use the sink - easiest place to clean up from afterwards.

An experiment with Pears

I'm having an experiment with pears. which also involves some masking and some pouring.

Come along with me and enjoy the fun of playing with paint !

In this first stage, I make a drawing of some pears. Thanks to Tricia from Painting Friends for the photo. I like odd numbers in a painting, they seem to sit better for me than two.

Once the drawing is made, I took my trusty water sprayer ( recycled as you can see) and wet the paper completely.



After that, I put some blobs of masking fluid on the paper in a random fashion , got down to paper level and squirted the masking fluid with my sprayer so that it moved around the paper. This is the result.


I found out afterwards, that using the sprayer to move the masking fluid was a mistake! The spray was so powerful it blew fluid into the valleys of my rough paper. If you do want to try this, only use the sprayer to wet the paper. You'll see why later.

Sunflower experiments

Mollie from the Painting Friends forum I belong to described to us a technique of dropping dots of colour and mopping water to create loose, vibrant sunflowers.

So I thought I would experiment to see if I could pick it up - and it was only on the fourth attempt that I felt it was loose enough to be really vibrant.

Once you've seen all four, please do tell me what you think... and which is your favourite!

Painting Miss Daisy

Using of one my friend's photos, I drew a pencil drawing of a cow.
I fancied having a bit of an experiment with this one, so feel free to tell me at any stage of the painting what you think of it :)
Here's the pencil drawing


and here's the first experimental background, using a mixture of cling film and sea salt.


Paintings under cling film take ages to dry - well they do on Arches 140lb rough, so this was all I got to do in the first day.

Gargoyle III

Normally I would paint more than this before I took a photo - but I think these eyes deserve a post all to themselves!

Gargoyle II

after the pencil drawing , the background paints...

Gargoyle I

Gargoyle the experiment!
I'm just having fun with this one and seeing where it goes.
Hope you enjoy the journey!

Experiment!

Ever get the feeling you're being watched?

Being watched I was as I did some experimenting with paint yesterday.
Experiments are fun - experiments are crucial to learning new things.
Time is never wasted playing with paints!

This experiment was to find out which -if any- technique or combination of washes I preferred for using on the body of the village church.

So the photo below is the experiment - done before I took Missy for a walk.
That was what she really wanted - not to watch me paint!