Quick pattern splash!

 Do you remember the little Bellis Daisies I painted with the intention of making a little pattern with them? Well here goes, the photos speak for themselves I think?? I went a bit pattern crazy :)

 It looked a bit sort of linear? so I attempted a new format with a background below. It's quite fun playing around with this. Oh me of simple brain :)

 And finally,  a couple of little images from one of the books I have been working on, there is a little blessing written on one page and my illustration on the opposite page. The hardest part about doing these is thinking up something to match the wording! Hope you think I've managed it??

Sketch and the 'Blessing' wording.

The 'Blessings' are for little girls.

I like this little outfit :)

I had 30 of these little illustrations to do for the first book, and now 30 more to do for the second book, 'Prayers' for little girls. I have quite enjoyed doing them overall, after I get past the sketch stage and thinking up the scenarios that is. Hope you like them? See you again soon.

I love Paris in the Sringtime.......

Ink line sketch

Watercolour line wash

 Oh I wish I was in Paris....but sadly not :(
As I mentioned in my Tulip post, whilst I waited for the washes to dry..... I set about another little project. I've noticed quite a few Eiffel tower inspired arty pieces about, so I decided to attempt a couple of ideas. Firstly I sketched one using a cut off straw and black ink,then I worked another up on wet paper, using a rigger brush(those long thin ones)and watercolour. I quite liked the different results.
The next part was scanning them into photoshop and bringing in some elements I had created a while back, to create Valentine ideas.

Re Jigged in photoshop

 I enjoyed playing about with all the hearts and roses, and a few little french words for LOVE. Hope you like them?

 I also managed to finish the letter 'C' with my stamped Christmas foliage.....

and created a 'Merry Christmas' with the 2 letters at the head. I am really just starting out on the digital art journey, I can't profess to being able to do wonderous things as yet. But I do like playing about with it, and I LOVE the possibilities it offers. I could not have painted those roses/ hearts in situ around the Eiffel Tower, without making a total mess! I think they look quite pretty and fit the sort of valentine theme, what with the French being great romantics. I just need someone else to like them now, they will be winging their way to various folks soon.
Meanwhile I am carrying on with my books, I managed 10 more sketches this week, and I'm waiting on a response, or to be given the go ahead hopefully. I will post a couple of my artworks for the last book next. So see you all again soon.

Patience.....is a virtue.

Finished Tulip painting

At Last I return, thank you for your patience! The finished Tulip painting is above and our patient and protracted wait for Spring to Sprung has been rewarded. It is such a joy to feel the warm sun, and suddenly everything is firing up out of the ground. I waited for those button flowers all the dark deep winter, well worth the wait.

such a colourful burst!

Snakeshead Fritillary peeping up at the back.

Just out today.

Little gem of a garden.

We have had a couple of walks out this past week, as it's been the last week of the Easter hols. The first 2 photos are the Peak District, the second 2 are the North York Moors.

My intrepid exploring companions, snow still up here.

Little lambs out, it's still quite cold.

Sun at last.

Good views as we climbed up.

I will be back with some new bits of artwork soon. I do hope you have some spring sunshine and warmth wherever you are in the world.

Tulips, a lesson in backruns and patience.

 Today I hope I am bringing you a bright and colourful posting, full of the joys of Spring! It has been a lovely sunny week here, still very cold, although that did change a little today. As I mentioned in my last post, on seeing those tiny bright flowers, I felt inspired to paint them, see above. I'm hoping to make these into a little pattern. making the flowers very tiny. I have really had a week off this last week, as I was waiting on decisions with some sketches, so with my mind buzzing with flowery inspiration, I finally decided to paint some tulips. I love these flowers, they are just so cheerful, in whatever colour. I do have some in the garden, but they are not out yet, and don't last too long, so I found my subject matter in a brochure, and did a sketch of the flowers in a bag, as they were presented.
 I had to think about my process to paint, and decided to mask out the body of the flowers, whilst painting the leaves. I have to tell you, this painting has taken all week to do! It has been a matter of painting one part, wet in wet, adding more paint, letting that swoosh in and settle, waiting to dry, then onto the next part.

Flowers masked out still, leaves all painted.

 I then started to paint in the flower heads, each petal painted separately, waiting for just the right moment in the paint drying stage, to add clean water to whichever edge I wanted to be the lightest, this created a backrun, which I felt captured the feel of these flowers, I also added the stems in at this stage, allowing those to develop backruns too. Hopefully you can see the backruns where the paint has sort of feathered and fuzzed out, I liked this effect. But it is so painstaking, carefully working up each petal, holding the paper at all angles, waiting and watching each stage progress.

The centre pink flower is still wet here.

I added the stem, whilst the flower was still wet, allowing the paint to run back into the  flower.

 It's quite difficult to capture what is happening in a photo. I wanted to show the intensity of the colour I put down, as this dries quite a bit paler. It's hard enough for me to get this right, I end up holding the paper up to the light by the window, so that I can see how the wet stage is drying, as it's quite crucial the point at which to add water or paint!! All in all, it's been a really satisfying exercise, but I had to be so patient, it was like watching paint dry, Ha Ha, funny, not :) I wasn't very patient however, and started another project, which I hope to show soon, whilst waiting for the paint to dry. I managed to finish the tulips, but I've yet to show you that, you will have to be patient....like me, and hopefully you'll come back to see it.
As a little aside this week, which has been a holiday week over here, I've had 2 delightful encounters with some rather beautiful birds. I stepped out of the house the other day, to walk the dog, and heard some unusual bird noises, it sounded rather like tiny baby birds all chirping at once?? It was a sunny day, but I knew there hadn't been a sudden surge of baby birds around! The trees at the end of our avenue held the mysterious noise, a large flock of beautiful waxwings, whoooweeee, they were lovely. When you are tuned in to the birds, these sounds alert you straight away, I'm glad my brain works this way.

 Then later that day, we were walking(the dog) again, up on some local heathland, and I had my first sighting of a green woodpecker. We flushed it up from the ground, where I presume it was ant hunting? It flew ahead into some trees, and we managed to see it again, it was trying to hide and was flat to a tree trunk, quite hard to spot, but then it swooped along to another tree, whoooweee again. This is quite a large bird, and its flashes of yellow and green and red are just delightful. It makes a crazy 'yaffle' laughing sound too, which it did as we walked away, laughing at us (but we did get a good sighting of it, ha ha,).

So I hope I've brightened your day, with all these colourful splashes, it's certainly perked up my week! See you again soon, with my finished painting and some more, hopefully.