Plugging away happily!!

I have "finished" my Apple Blossoms- but for a few touchups after I stare at it for a while. I have been playing about with it for a couple of  weeks off and on.

As always- very happy with some bits. NOT so happy about others! 

This still needs a bit of work and to me, it is CRYING OUT for a gently washy bit of background- just to make it jump off the page a bit. Trouble is--- I am a devout CHICKEN! Stay tuned. I HOPE it will come.

And I have been playing- DRAWING in my big new watercolour Journal , prepping for some more new pieces. (I hesitate to call them "pieces at this stage as it sounds a tad pretentious, but what else can I call them?) Here are some samples. I have been drawing a LOT!!!

This is another apple blossom one with some studies of the spent blossoms underneath. I SHOULD be seeing some of the BILLIONS of wee apples developing for the fall by now. Better pick a bit and work on that too.

And this is a twig of the deep pink crabapple blossom at peak. I REALLY want to do this one. MAY use some graphite paper to transfer my drawing to WC paper. I have never used it before. Worth a try!Does anyone have any experience of using Graphite paper???

And at the bottom of the same page- a straight down macro of one of my succulents which I HOPE will be a great exercise in GREYS!! How many Shades? Stay tooned! 

And a pageful of allsorts. The little "watercolour " at the top is a copy from an exercise in separating foreground from background petals. It is kind of wonky as I could not see the drawing well enough to make a decent copy. Never mind. I learned a lot. I THINK it is by an artist called Jane Freeman. She does GORGEOUS work! SOO much detail!

And last, but not least, I JUST started work on a little dwarf Red Iris. They are long gone from the garden now with this awful, early heat. Here is my reference photo, taken a week or so ago.

I edited it as a high key photo because, as glorious as the original colour is, as a wee watercolour, it would lose its delicate details. I hope I can capture it.

Here is my drawing and the start of the colour- waiting to dry!

It will get there but there is a L O N G way to go. Oh, what fun though!!!

OK, Dear Friends, stay tuned but don't hold your collective breath. DH is NOT in shape to do a lot of heavy lifting just at the moment, so I am being the jobbing gardener, Chief cook and bottle washer. Painting gets squeezed between! My idea of ABSOLUTE Luxury- would be a WHOLE day to paint, uninterrupted! Guess I'd need Staff for that to happen ;-)

I hope you and yours are all well and thriving and enjoying the heat! Please take care and keep on Creating! HUGS!