Autumn 04: 04/03/2023

This week I completed the third and final piece of the Autumn Trio for Sellisternian. You can catch up on last week's work here, the overall idea for Sellisternian here and my practice for this process here.

It's time to finish the Autumn Trio! And it's a complicated one, lots of things going on so let's get on with it. Imperial sheet of Fabriano Artistico 300gsm, hot pressed watercolour paper, taped to an A1 canvas board. A graphite transfer of my digital sketch and details added in black Polychromos. A layer of toned gesso over the area that I'll be using acrylic paint on, the autumn foliage bursting out of the hand held mirror.

Plenty of pattern to go down here, right over the background and the figure's clothing and a bit on one of the arms. A variety of coloured veins on the leaves and a bit of yellow texture on the mushroom stalks. I put a bit of detail around the eyes and then some of the very darkest shadows. I put down most of the acrylic paint element here, lots of cadmium red, lemon yellow and yellow ochre tempered with some purple shadows.

The robe is going to be the earthier half to the sky of the background so I filled in the pattern there with mass tone of both dioxazine and muted violet. I diluted the muted viloet for the background pattern, a combo I've loved on the previous two pieces. I used the angled flat brush on the mushrooms with the dioxazine ink to add the ruffles and a bit of shading. I watered down the left over ink to add a bit of shading to the face and the acorns on the mirror handle and then let the paper dry over night ready for watercolour.

I started with the palest wash on the large areas of skin and treated myself to a coffee while that dried because those areas bordered with basically all the other elements! Important part of the process. The grapes, pear and apple are all done in the same colours as the leaves so I did them all together. I especially enjoyed the grapes, dropping blue and yellow ochre in to a lemon yellow wash. As with the previous piece the colours of the mushrooms are blended on the paper itself, one of my favourite things to do with watercolour paint.

Autumn's signature blue/brown mix went over most of the robe and background, skipping the fabric on the right side. This section had the violet/brown earthy mix instead, as did the hair. An ochre wash went over the ornate acorn mirror and that was the watercolour layer down.

I cracked out the Polychromos for the final layer and bumped up the red of the apple. The pear got some blemishes and warmth and the grapes had an extra bump of yellow. I detailed the mirror handle with scarlet and white and upped the detail of the eyes. The foliage growing from the mirror was extended with wax pastels that easily added some fun texture. Red roots crawled from the fingernails and white gouache highlighted the mushrooms and slim tree branches. A splash of gold gouache and Autumn was done!

I'm really pleased with this final piece and how it shows the abundance and liveliness of autumn and the harvest season. The figure is like a tree itself, many arms holding nature's bounty, ringed in mushrooms and cloaked in earth. The way the acrylic foliage spills out in to the rest of the painting is appealing and once again that background speaks of cold autumn mist. The Autumn Trio has been great fun and I can't wait to see it alongside the other three seasons.

You can see that the Acrylic Landscape sketchbook was also in full autumnal swing. I love that big red and yellow field in the middle of the second one and the contrast with the blue stream of the seconds. You probably can't tell from a photo but these are lovely and textured, great fun to paint.

Doodlebook has been dominated by landscape sketches recently. The colours are just from whatever mish mash of materials I have in a jar, it's more about getting a composition down but I do like the random colour schemes here. This sketchbook lays nice and flat so I can easily work over full spreads so I can actually fit a lot of detail in here. Some of these spreads will probably end up being painted.

Scottish artist Andrew Walker came to visit us at Studio Club this week and offer advice about our work. It was a lovely, generous session and I left very appreciative of those who shared their work and for Andrew's input.

I loved William Blake as a teenager but haven't really engaged with his work since. I picked up this second hand World Of Art book on him and it's been a really nice rediscovery. I love his expressive figures and their otherwordly settings, it's got me wanting to plan an illustration project later in the year.

Sellisternian is half finished! Next week I'll do prep work for the Winter Trio, if that's already done I'll link it below. If not, thanks for being early and have a great week!