Making the best of a bad job

I'm still working to alter my 'Little Book of Red' even though the final video for DMTV is done. These things take time and I'm happy to revisit pages many times to add extra detail if I think it will improve the results. I'd always thought this page was lacking.

It had started life as a rubbing taken directly from the preceding page where I'd glued an image of an apple cut out of a magazine. The magazine paper was thick enough to create a ridge through the sheet of thin paper in my book and a soft oil pastel picked up on that to give me an outline for drawing into.   On reflection, I hadn't taken it far enough and the drawing was pretty feeble so I've gone back in with generous layers of oil pastel worked with solvent just like I demonstrated in the recent DMTV video, 'Painterly Pastels'. The results are richer now and the colours more intense.

It must have been a week for working back into unsatisfactory drawings! I'd painted a heron because I've been seeing them up close lately. In fact we've been plagued by them over the last couple of weeks. I'm very torn about their visits to the garden because, one one hand they are magnificent and I love to see them up close but, and it's a big but, they have plundered the pond of fish and frogs. Add that to the fact we have a pair of Mallards on there too and you'll understand the perils the pond life has been facing. No one who had a choice would choose to be a tadpole!

The heron watercolour painting was also rather feeble and half hearted. I really wasn't liking it at all so I resorted to drastic measures and ran it under the tap, sponging the paint off till I had just a soft suggestion of the shape. That gave me a base to draw into with water-soluble pencils and a bit of body colour too. I much prefer how he's looking now. Shows you shouldn't give up if you're dissatisfied. If it's rubbish anyway you might just as well take a risk to see if it can be redeemed!

Work continues to pile up around me and in the continuing pursuit of a tidy house I've been going through my stuff. As a result I have added a couple more items to the 'Small Works for Sale' page and also reduced the price of everything that's listed there! Please take a look from the link at the top of this page and get in touch if you fancy anything.

Thanks for dropping by - Linda x