Winter 02: 18/03/2023

This week I completed the first piece in Sellisternian's winter 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.

Winter is here! This trio is going to be a little dark, a little spooky but just like with Summer and Autumn we start off with a scene-setting composition that lays out our colours, patterns and visual themes. You know the drill by now, 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.

I used my lovely pink fine liner to put in the veins on the leaves towards the top and purple for some detail on the eyes peeking out. That took about an hour and the entire rest of the session was spent on that background pattern, oh the crossed eyes but oh the result! I made a point to remember to have the background showing through the circles cut out in the foliage.

Time to lie in the bed I made for myself and fill in that background pattern with a muted pink acrylic ink. This pattern was actually more fun than the others because I use a more concentrated mix in the bold crosses and a lighter one for the petal shapes so it broke up the task. I used the left overs to add a bit of shading to the eyes, though they're going to be quite washed out over all, just like me in the darker months. Aaaand sometimes in the brighter ones too.

I want the orb in the lower right to be a nice and deep warm red so I put a layer of Pyrrole Red acrylic ink as a base for later watercolour and that was the ink layer done.

So for winter I'll be using what are probably my two fanciest watercolour paints, Amethyst Genuine and Sodalite Genuine from Daniel Smith. Amethyst is a really deep granulating purple with a slight shimmer to it and I love the way it mixes or looks alongside with Quinacridone gold and that's what you see on the foliage. Sodalite is like an indigo with heavy black granulation and it dominates the background, shadowing across the muted pink pattern beneath. I mixed Ultramarine and the same heavily textured brown from the autumn series in to a muted purple and used this on the folds of the leaves and the shadows on the white tree.

I layered Pyrrole Red watercolour over the Pyrrole red acrylic ink, double Pyrrole and nicely saturated and now I've typed the name Pyrrole too much and it looks really strange. I mixed a touch of it with heavily watered Quicacridone gold for the big gold ornamental ring and used a redder version of this mix for warmth around the eyes. Straight quin gold went over the irises and they get a nice glow as a result.

I started the finishing layer with the eyes, adding depth with a deep warm purple pencil and fineliner eyelashes. Then I wanted the branches of the white 'tree' to also resemble cracks in ice or roots so I elaborated on them with white gouache. I also used the gouache to add stars to the background around the leaves to hint at it transitioning to sky. I used white wax pastel on the folded edges of the leaves to give a hint of frost and a touch of red pencil for warmth on the big gold ring. Usual splash of gold gouache and we're done!

That Sodalite is probably my favourite paint and I love the way it looks over the muted pink and alongside the red and purple. The yellow of the ornamental ring and the white really pops against it too. Now I've seen the colours and elements all laid out I'm sure they'll look great in the remaining winter themed pieces.

Here's a couple more pages from the A2 Acrylic Landscape Sketchbook and they're a bit more experimental by which I mean I wasn't in the mood for them! So the first one was some messy close up branches and the second one I gave up on half way through and did a layer of peachy white over it all for a hazy look. It's the old mid sketchbook hump, I'm sure I'll get over it.

These spreads from Doodlebook are also pretty funny, I feel like three of these landscapes are from an alien planet and then that third one is a nice normal Earth countryside scene. I think it's the neon pencils that made it in to the rotation this week, that's the result of the random colour Doodlebook lottery!

I love this wee 'The Book Of The...' series of art books, with lots of examples by different artists on one theme. In this case it's flowers to drag me through the dregs of this long winter and in to spring. It's not really working but the pictures are still pretty.

Next week I'll be painting the second piece in Sellisternian's winter trio, if that's already up it'll be linked below. Otherwise, thanks for being early and have a great week!