Summer 02: 21/01/2023

This week I painted the first of twelve final pieces for Sellisternian and the first of a summer 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. Otherwise, let's get on with it!

I was ready to get started on this lovely Imperial sheet of Fabriano Artistico 300gsm, hot pressed watercolour paper, taped to an A1 canvas board. I added some details to the transfer of my digital sketch with a trusty black Polychromos. At this point I also noticed that my flowers were shaped a lot like the ones on my duvet cover, I guess I have positive, snoozy associations with them.

My next layer was done with waterproof fineliners in green, yellow, pink, blue and purple. This will peek up under the transparent ink and watercolour to give extra shape and watercolour. The leaves will all be painted with the same pigments but I lined the veins on them in different to give some variety. I then went cross eyed while using a craft stencil to line in the honeycomb pattern of the background! The fineliner details on the portrait elements would go in after the paint stage.

What remained of my eyesight was now spent filling the gaps of the honeycomb pattern with a muted turquoise acylic ink. An orangey azo yellow went in to the background orbs, eyeballs, the centre of the flowers and a few odd leaves to help tie them all together. I used a very muted purple to shade the portrait elements as I knew that it would be further muted under a layer of watercolour but wanted it to look distinct from the other elements. The last of the acrylic ink was some light blue shading cast on to the honeycomb by the foliage and then I was ready for my favourite stage!

The key colours choices here are the Potter's Pink of the petals, the Raw Sienna of the leaves and the Cerulean Blue of the background. Watercolour botanicals traditionally use very transparent, vivid pigments but I love doing florals in earthier, granulating paint. Potter's Pink is an old pigment adapted to watercolour from ceramics (hence the name), it's granulating, semi-opaque and such a desaturated pink that it's pretty much an earth tone. I knew it would be brightened up by the magenta fineliner beneath it and the Quinacridone Gold that I would be dropping in along the edges of the petals. You can see it here, alongside the Cerulean that I layered over the turquoise honeycomb pattern.

I would usually use the glorious Ultramarine for a blue background like this but Cerulean feels more summer sky to me and has a touch of opacity to help it calm down the turquoise of the ink layer. It's a pigment that I don't use often so it will help the summer paintings be distinct from others in the series.

I wanted to avoid using green paint in the summer trio as I'm leaning more in to green for the spring paintings. Instead, and haunted by memories of an unpleasantly hot 2022 summer, I picked earthy Raw Sienna as the main pigment for the foliage. I would also drop in more vibrant yellows and blue which would form hints of green on the surface of the paper but these leaves are as parched as I was this past July!

A diluted mix of Burnt Sienna and Quinacridone Magenta went over the portrait elements and a warm, tropical mix of blues went in the centre of the blooms to make the yellow cores pop. Most of the areas that had a yellow acrylic ink underpainting were layered with a mix of granulating purple and acidic yellow. The stems had a pale wash of whatever was left on my palette from the flower centres as I didn't want them getting too dark or grabbing too much attention. I love working in watercolour and making it move and blend over the paper, lovely!

I like to let a watercolour layer dry overnight, especially as I use a lot of water to get granulation, before going in with more mixed media for the finishing layer. The flower centres and buds were detailed with an intense white ink that I also used to sharpen the edges of the stems and veins on a few leaves.

A mauve pencil added shadows and redness to the portrait elements and fineliner was used for the freckles and eyelashes. A little Ultramarine watercolour went around the edges of the portrait elements to knock them in to shadow and help distinguish them from the rest of the piece.

I scribbled across the stems with a may green pencil so they would look juicer than the leaves and added a few scarlet strokes growing from them for contrast. I also added some orange shadows on the areas that had an acrylic yellow base to bump up the sense of sunshine.

Wax pastels in a few random colours were smudged around in small patches to give a hazy look and as always I finished with a splattering of gold gouache. The effect reminded me of pollen and dust motes in a sun beam and looked very pretty against the Potter's Pink. And it's done!

Honestly my urge is to go in with a lot of blue, moody colours and knock back the background and dramatically shade the flowers and add, spiky, inky stems...but that's not the purpose of this piece! I'm trying to channel summer rather than perpetual Goth season and with that in mind I'm very happy with this first painting. It looks like patterned fabric from a very fancy pair of curtains with bits of portrait squinting through the cracks thanks to that honeycomb pattern, worth the crossed eyes! I'm pleased with how the colours played out and think they should work very nicely across the next two paintings.

I'll write more on my feelings about summer and how the idea unfolds between pieces when I'm reflecting on the finished Summer Trio but for now this painting is doing it's job as a piece of the puzzle and I'm satisfied.

In other art news, I started another new sketchbook this week. It's a Royal Talens Art Creation, 21x29.7 cm, 140gsm, 80 sheets, smooth paper and I'll mostly be working in felt tip pen and coloured pencils in it. I want to do a lot of loose sketching from nature in it, landscapes, foliage and so on. However the Scottish weather is not cooperating yet so I broke it in with some florals, doodling and drawing shapes from textile patterns.

I also meandered on in my big landscape sketchbook, still having a good time with colour and the textures that I can get with the acrylic paint. I've decided not to research landscape artists or conventions of landscape painting until I've finished this sketchbook. Not because it's not helpful, artists have been slowly unlocking the landscape for generations and it would be silly not to take advantage of that! I just want to have fun and experiment for a while before I become concerned with the 'success' of my landscapes. By the end of this sketchbook I'll probably have a list of problems to solve and that's when I'll go looking for wisdom and further inspiration.

At this week's Studio Club we had a sitter come in and had a relaxing session of drawing her. I cracked out the felt tips and pastel pencils and really enjoyed some loose sketching after a week of carefully painting for Sellisternian. Next week we're doing collage, another activity that I love and never make time for so I'm looking forward to that.

With pattern on my mind this wee I was often flipping through this little V&A book of Indian Floral Patterns. I love how dense and busy these fabrics are and will keep them in mind as I explore the use of pattern over the course of Sellisternian.

It's Friday as I write this update and tomorrow I'll get started with my second slice of Sellisternian, the second of the Summer Trio. I’ll update you next Saturday and if that's already up then it'll be linked below, otherwise thanks for being here early and have a fab week!