Flowerings: January

Flowerings: January

The third art work from my January visit to Markshall for my Twelve Months on an Essex Country Estate painting project: you may remember that each month I was going to choose something flowering in the grounds to draw or paint. It was quite difficult to find something in January! I settled on these witch-hazel blooms because of the vibrant yellow.

The little painting – about 9 inches square – is on Saunders Waterford hot pressed paper, so a very smooth heavy paper.
I started by putting in some background colour using Schmincke Horadam Aquarell watercolours, which are super granulating – in other words they do not make an even wash of colour, but dry as a broken variegated colour. Once this was dry I used Caran D’Ache Neocolour II to draw out the twigs and flowers.
I felt the colours of the flowers and twigs weren’t bright enough, so emphasised them with mixtures of Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Yellow, Titanium White and Sap Green gouache.
Finally, I used a very fine nibbed Coptic Multi liner 0.1 to add some definition to the crinkly petals!
It was all very exploratory – and definitely ended up being ‘mixed media’!