Summer ShowStoppers 5

Here come the flowers!

Glorious fuchsias - which brighten up so many summer baskets.
There are two varieties painted here, the single bloom and the showy double.

I adore them all.

Summer ShowStoppers 2

The first stage is to wet the paper.
After that I dropped in two separate mixes, one of alizarin crimson and one of transparent yellow.
This in my mind fixes the background and the flowers as two separate entities.

The hardest part of doing this stage is to walk away and leave the painting alone, whilst the whole thing dries.
If you don't do that, you run the risk of ruining your work.

Summer ShowStoppers - a work in progress

In an earlier post, I mentioned how I like to try something new over the summer break.

This year I wanted to concentrate on my floral paintings.

Whilst I eagerly await the arrival of North Light's Big book of painting watercolor flowers from the US, I decided to pick up a book by Wendy Tait and practice one of the demos.

Here is the drawing of what will become some showstopping summer fuchsias.