Welcome to Polly's Blog

Welcome to Polly's Blog
Watercolour, humour, this and that

Saturday, 25 May 2013

NEIGHBOURS CLEMATIS

Naughty Polly pinched some of my neighbours Clematis.  Well I digress here.   By kind permission of Beverley Wells (wonderful flower painter) I have copied a painting of her Irises (second painting) to give me an idea of how to paint and enjoy painting, freely painted flowers. Enjoy being the main objective.The painting  I am dead chuffed with.

First here is my first solo effort in this method, without the use of a 'safety net'.  To be honest it isn't too bad for me but I started to fiddle and lost my 'lost and found' edges and fiddled with the left hand one now overworked. Looks better on tinternet!

A gentle hesitant foxtrot of a painting


My problem is I am too tight when painting flowers and Beverley is trying to encourage me to dance with the brush.  I feel I am on my first week of Strictly Come Dancing (or Dancing with the Stars if you are American). So the steps were laboured but there was some semblance of a flow and a couple of times I lost the routine. Yet still quite quite enjoyed it.  I don't know how many marks I would get, but hope I wouldn't be kicked out in the first week!

A tango of a painting! (Kind permission of Beverley Wells)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

20 comments:

  1. I like your negative painting around the clematis petals on the right. I love how you described doing them as a dance. The one of the irises looks more relaxed with the more random areas of color and the splatters. Nicely done! You can dance for another week in my opinion.

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    1. Thanks for dancing with me! The Irises were a copy, though, of a Beverley Wells painting. She is really encouraging me to like painting flowers.

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  2. these are both beautiful.........that is my next aim.......... to try to paint flowers with freedom. looseness .and maybe a little dancing in between!!! lol
    if they are half as nice and fresh as this...I will be delighted!!

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    1. How kind of you. Perhaps I should put on some music and dance while painting for a looser finish! Good look with you aim. Join me on Strictly Come Painting Flowers!!

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  3. A great name for a class Polly, Strictly come painting flowers, you are achieving some lovely elements, I saw some Clematis on the TV from the Chelsea flower show only yesterday and it is a flower I have yet to try, must see if a neighbor has any I could pinch LOL

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    1. Thanks Lorraine. I was lucky, Jean's clematis is growing into our garden. Have a lovely weekend

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  4. Hi from sunny Fuerteventura (well actually its not as sunny as it should be, but still nice and warm).

    Your flower paintings are going from strength to strength Polly. I've photographed lots of vibrant hibiscus and other exotic flowers out here 'just in case' I ever get the urge to try floral work but for strictly come flower painting I guess that would mean doing flamenco? Not sure my knees are up to that :-) off to polish up the castanets now

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    1. Thanks so much My ultimate goal one day is to paint an Argentine tango of a painting with twists and turns and gay abandon hey ho Enjoy fuerte Ole!

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  5. Your brushes dance beautifully, Polly! Both paintings are great! I wish I had a neighbour with clematis! :)

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    1. Creep down the street in the early morning and borrow some!

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  6. Both really beautiful and free, I m sure they would still keep you if it were'Strictly come Dancing' !Have a nice Sunday.

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  7. Lots of fluid movement and a rustle of a frilly dress, your paintings look the part Polly....high marks from me too!

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    1. Looks like I've made it to the next round! Thanks

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  8. Strictly Come Painting is a genius title.. love it!! As for you and painting flowers think it is now time for you to maybe realise you are really getting a feel for them certainly based on what you have done here. You say you are too tight with them... not sure if you are painting the bg's first but if not try that then pick out small areas of flowers with some negative painting- that way you still have some lost edges and you can stop before you have defined all the edges if that makes sense? If you are painting the flowers first do a vague suggestion of the shape but wash the edges away so you have nothing more than a blob of colour and let dry. Then you can build up some of the edges slowly with positive and negative painting doing little areas at a time. Again that will let you keep some lost edges where the flower is merging into the bg. As you have already lost some of the edges, it will appear that the flower is part of rather than sitting on top of the bg. Hope that helps.

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    1. Thanks everything helps at the moment as experimenting all the time Will try anything so will take note of what you suggest before waltzing on to another flower subject!

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  9. Polly - these are both lovely paintings - I like your dancing my friend. I too struggle with trying to paint the details instead of capturing the essence of the petals. You are doing a good job.

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    1. Thanks Debbie like the word essence. Will dance again before long

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  10. To paint flowers in freedom is always a thrill! I love both watercolours!!!

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  11. Lovely colors and technique in the background and the flowers themselves are beautiful too.

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