Sellisternian: A self-portrait playing out in twelve parts and across the four seasons.

Spring 03: 22/04/2023

This week I completed the first piece in Sellisternian's spring themed trio. You can catch up on last week's work here, the overall idea for Sellisternian here and my practice for this process here.

So this is the second of the trio so it takes the raw materials from the first piece and begins to transform them in to the final, third form. That's particularly explicit this time round, with a pair of puppeteer hands weaving flowers and foliage together.

So say it with me, how do we start? 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, blue Polychromos for the water drops and a red one for the ribbons dropping from the hands. The multicoloured lines really helped me keep track of things in what is a bit of a confusing sketch.

On to pens and I used a blue liner to add weight to the rain drops and pattern across the hands. Green liner added veins to the leaves and then yellow liner to pattern the background. You'll notice that the background pattern shines through the centres of the big flowers as well. Once that pattern was finally in it was time for acrylic inks.

I did the big job first, filling in that background pattern with lemon yellow, remembering to continue it in to the centres of the flowers. I filled the hanging ribbons with concentrated pyrrole red and tinted the fingertips with a lighter wash. I put a layer of water on the sunny orb between the hands and dropped in some yellow ochre. I used phthalo blue wet-in-wet for the rain drops, concentrated for the pattern on the hands and heavily washed out to shade the flowers a bit. Leftover lemon yellow and blue went in some of the stems and inks were done, ready for watercolour.

I started with a light wash of PG50 and PV19 over the entire background pattern and the petals of the flowers. So most of the piece, that was a good excuse to use a big brush! An equally light wash of magenta and yellow ochre went over the hands and then I bumped up the sunny orb with a bit of quincacridone gold. The leaves alternate between Green Apatite Genuine and a mix of phthalo green and manganese violet. The lighter stems are a very light wash of teal over the underlying green acrylic mix and the teal also went in the rain drops. I reinforced the red ribbons with pyrrole red paint before washing it out to add extra red streaks between the foliage. Once that was all thoroughly dry it was time for the finishing touches.

I added a touch of yellow pencil to the rain drops and the lighter stems. I also added more red lines connecting the flowers and hands using red in both pencil and wax pastel. I added a bit of deep green wax pastel stems around the flowers on the hands. A splash of gold gouache and it's done!

I love the way the plants, ribbons and rain drops hang from the hands here, like they're knitting together in mid air. I wanted the flowers to be quite indistinct, like they were forming from rain clouds and could be dripping wither rain or dew. It's hard to hold myself back when I see fairly blank space but it was worth the will power, this has the bright and airy feel I wanted and sets the stage for the next (and final!!!) piece.

In the acrylic landscape sketchbook we have a page of trees messing around with layering on top of bold primaries and then another with a more distant view, blurring the trees together. Some cheery blue skies as well, inspired by actual real Scottish weather I have experienced this month, can you believe it?!

Meanwhile in doodlebook....Some of these spreads look really windy and blustery to me, I think it's from all the visible pencil strokes? But visible strokes in the skies as well as the land seem to be giving a more still look. So textured trees, smooth sky equals windy day look? Maybe!

After my recent Renaissance kick I had to have a flip through a favourite book, Europe's 100 Best Cathedrals. From the photos I'm sure that you can see why! These buildings contain countless hours of skilled labour and knowledge, mostly performed with no electric tools or lighting. So I'll complain a little less about the lighting at my desk. A little.

Next week I'll move on to the third piece of the spring trio and the final painting in Sellisternian! If that update is already up I'll link it below, otherwise thanks for reading this early and have a great week!