Pansy painting continued.

Today my students continued painting the pansy flowers. We started by painting the stems, sepals and the very centres of the flowers with a light green wash (Cadmium yellow pale, Prussian blue and a touch of Alizarin crimson). The next stage was to paint the top surface of the leaves. Two green colour mixes were made (one mid green and other a darker green) using Cadmium yellow pale, Prussian blue and Crimson alizarin. The leaves were painted one at a time and the paper was moistened with clean water before applying the paint. The two greens were applied to the leaves to correspond to the light and darker areas. On the demonstration leaf, I painted, I also reserved a pale area to represent the light shining onto the leaf. Whilst all the washes were wet I used the tip of a dry brush to lift out the veins. The next stage is to add shading to the leaves and to define some of the veins using a combination of the two paint mixes already used. The final stages will be to complete the stems and sepals and paint the under surface of the leaves.

I have finished dying the fabric for my City and Guilds embroidery course and have now to draw up the design for a wall hanging and prepare samples of the techniques I will use. I have a good rough plan of the wall hanging but have yet to decide on the size and scale of each section. I will be using a design based on a pattern taken from Tutankhamuns sarcophagus. I am also cutting out some little doll clothes. Definitely keeping myself busy.