Each morning a robin sits on the washing line and shows me their breakfast. It is usually a slim, still-wriggling worm. But this morning the robin had in its beak a pale lime green caterpillar. I am no judge of insect menus, but I am sure this caterpillar was (sadly for the caterpillar) a delicious morning morsel. The colours of the robin and the caterpillar on this sunlit morning made such a wonderful picture: the kind of painting I could not imagine getting right.
recent watercolour study - landscape II
Light and colour have my attention, especially during these summer months. I recently dusted off my wooden box of watercolour pans to discover just a few colours rattling about inside. A little disappointed by my random collection of watercolours, I nonetheless decided to revisit and work loosely with them. It’s always good to go back to something you have loved and learned from over time.
A few weeks back I wrote about how I began my painting seriously with watercolour but gouache is now my primary paint. I see no reason why gouache cannot give a little room for watercolour though, especially as I know they are quite significantly different. They can work in harmony together, of course, but gouache can be - as I said previously - a bit of a thug.
I am not going to write up a side by side comparison - a watercolour v gouache review - in these notes - I will leave that for another time. Instead, I’ll share some notes on what it was like to work with watercolour after not using it for a while.
recent watercolour study - landscape III
Watercolours slowed me down, in a good way. I paint in a very particular way, taking on the persona of an Edwardian lady quite possibly… I slipped back into holding my brush a certain way, using brush strokes from way back and felt something of an old self rekindled. Using small pans of colour rather than tubes of watercolour has always been my preference and I don’t think this will change. I work on a small scale and have no need for a lot of paint. I like the dibbing and dabbing (highly technical terms) of a brush on a little rectangle of pigment. I like taking the pan in my left hand, holding it pinched between thumb and forefinger, whilst feeding my right-handed brush.
I decided upon painting a few landscape studies, inspired by my local park walks and memories of dream-like places. It was immediately apparent to me that watercolour allows the light into layers. The colours have a consistency that does not dull on drying, unless really muddied up by mixing. I do not use black watercolour but instead I used a little charcoal in places where I wanted a little dark in the sky.
recent watercolour - landscape study IV
Patience and care, slowing down - all these things are good for me, especially as we reach mid-year and I feel tiredness creep in. It is not burn-out, but a need to just take a breath and realise that all I have done in the past several months is a lot. A lot.
Laying down washes of colour, allowing for things to dry and settle, going back in and gently, gently working a little more - not worrying about the outcomes. These watercolour studies were a good way of reacquainting myself with the medium.
I took a different approach and opened a new sketchbook. With just payne’s grey watercolour, I drew, improvised, finding figures and connecting them as a family within a space. I enjoyed working with the payne’s grey very much - it made a change from my usual jet black gouache - the paint I would usually use for such a sketchbook idea. The gentle, luminious quality of watercolour lends an ethereal quality which is what I am often striving for.
Hope these notes were interesting to you - and as I said, I will write more of a comparison (gouache v watercolour) some other time.
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Yes, this coming week is going to be a little different, what with a certain jubilee and bank holidays. I am taking a few days off from the usual pattern.
There will be no Wednesday evening update (the shock, the strangeness! well, it will feel odd to me) but instead I am updating tomorrow Monday 30th at 8pm UK time - - with a small selection of archive work at special prices + a few new things - things I don’t usually offer for sale and again at modest prices. I'm calling it my summer bazaar sale.
I will be previewing things in my Instagram stories from Monday morning.
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A few notes from this week
I was walking into town, along the path that runs by the side of the park, when I heard a mewing from the tangled hedgerow. It was difficult to hear because of the traffic going by but I was sure there was a cat, somewhere. I tried, in vain, to see into the mass of brambles, decaying branches and overgrown wildness - but alas I could not reach into the depths. Quite useless. I did not see a cat but continued to hear it. I wonder if it was just a wanderer telling me to keep out. It was not a mewing of distress, I told myself, as I continued my walk. Nevertheless, I felt some guilt for not being able to see the source of the mewing, to check. Oh the agonies of a being a cat lady.
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I am never not astonished by my left-side neighbours and their magical garden. I look out my bedroom window to see, suddenly, rockets of bright lupins in full flower. Now, I know it is possible they were bought from a garden centre in bloom and simply planted out - but I like to believe they went from nothing to full-on spectacular overnight - because my neighbour’s, with their heart-shaped lawn in their front garden and their greenhouse of amazing cacti are incredible gardeners. And lovely, lovely neighbours.
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This week has been one of ‘almosts’. I almost found myself tempted into looking at TikTok (but was warned by my daughter it would be too disturbing for me). I almost decided to take June off from posting on Instagram. I almost spent a day sewing without losing my scissors. I almost made coleslaw.
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I almost installed tiktoc too. I installed it a year ago and looked at it for about 5 minutes and uninstalled it. I'm still undecided. I do keep "uninstall" as a handy option for a lot of things. I always enjoy your posts!
Like!