Great Weather for Painting

Considering it's meant to be summer we've been having horribly wet and windy weather all week. Not good for many things but perfect for hunkering down in the studio with paper and paint. I painted most of the weekend although there were interruptions to the peace - a nearby airshow meant there were a few spectacular sightings of planes doing barrel rolls overhead. I ran out to watch every time I heard them approach - you couldn't miss them with such a huge wall of sound. Because of the clouds they had to fly really low to the ground. Gave me goosebumps!

I had a go at capturing the cactus flowers before they were gone for another year. It's a muddled and complex structure so I kept it simple with just one bloom and a few of the least ugly leaves. I had to include some body colour with the transparent watercolour so that I could place white petals over the dark background colour I'd already applied to the lower part of the page. I don't use gouache all that often because I'm not fond of its chalky character but it has its uses at times!

And the artichoke plants which are growing like triffids right now made a good subject for the adjoining page. I love mixing all those different values of green from just 2 blues and 2 yellows.

Looks like I've always been attracted to the same kinds of things. I found this forgotten watercolour in an old portfolio yesterday when I was searching for some more sheets of paper. It's dated August 1994 - nothing changes it seems!

Bye for now - Linda x