Painting Orchids

I have just finished my painting of an orchid. I loved the colours of this Orchid and thought it would make a lovely painting. Because Orchids have long stems I decided to approach the flower stem and the leaves seperately and overlay the leaves with the flowers. The masking fluid worked well and enabled me to achieve balanced washes across the leaves. I thoroughly enjoyed painting the markings on the petals. Very nice painting project to do.

Watercolour painting of Gorran Haven Cornwall.

Have been painting and sewing this week. I have finished the watercolour of Gorran Haven Cornwall and am now painting an Orchid. I had drawn up the plant as part of a short course and thought it needed to be finished. I still have a lot to do but it is painting up well. I had to use masking fluid on this painting as the orchid flowers lay over the leaves and I needed broad strokes to paint the leaves. I don't like using masking fluid as I find it difficult to get smooth edges but this worked well and thankfully did'nt damage the paper when removed. I have also made some 11.5" fashion doll dresses and they look really cute and summery.

Gorran Haven

Photographs of the Orchid painting will follow.

Painting and sewing

A lovely week. I finished work for the summer on Tuesday and spent Wednesday cleaning the house.Thank goodness I did it yesterday, its too hot today.I have been making apple pin cushions from a pattern I found on Etsy by Nap Kitten. I am very pleased with the pattern and the apples were straight forward to make, if a little fiddly.

I have been wanting to paint a coastal or harbour scene in watercolour for some time.  I have a lovely photograph from my holiday last year of Gorran Haven in Cornwall. Just the thing. Since it is so warm I thought I would paint today in spite of the fact that the paint might dry very quickly. Actually it was fine. I think it must be humid which does help. I am using Khadi paper which I have not used before. I learnt one thing you cannot use the rubber on this paper as when you apply the paint it acts as blotting paper. I am painting in stages because, at the moment, the sunlight is directly across my painting and is very bright. I am waiting for the sun to move round a bit then I can do some more.

Textile art

It has been a very busy couple of weeks. My son was home from uni, another year completed. He has gone back to uni for a month to gain more experience. It was lovely having him home. I have been knitting dresses for Barbie and framing up some of my embroidery pieces produced during my City and Guilds course. I have also put three of my framed paintings and four portfolio pieces into the local exhibition run by the Brentwood and Billericay Wild life trust. The open exhibition begins on the 12th July. It was lovely to be selecting paintings to enter and to paint a new painting. Have a look at the framed embroidery pieces. The three smaller works are now for sale on my Folksy shop.