Tag Archives: painting

New painting: “Floating”

‘Floating’ – painting in watercolour with gold leaf detail

I managed to finish an actual bigish painting (20.5 x 14.5 inches), which is a rarity at the moment. This is ‘Floating’ in watercolour with touches of gold leaf. Currently unsold and prints available in my Etsy Shop.
I thought you might like to see some step-by-step photos, so I’ve posted some below…

But first, some close-up details of the painting:

: Floating – close-up

: detail of feet

: Floating – detail

And the step-by-step photos – the colours aren’t consistent (notice the changes in colour of the brown tape around the edge… which did not in fact change colour…), unfortunately my camera tries to correct the colour depending on what it sees, and there’s also different colour light depending on the time of day, but I hope it will give you a bit of an idea of the processes that went into creating this painting.

: source photo – one I took myself – this is Jackie, in Vobster Quay.

: the original drawing.

: Prussian Blue

: more Prussian Blue

: more Prussian Blue

: and still Prussian Blue

: washes of Indian Yellow

: more washes, some magenta, and a slightly different yellow on the swimming costume

: lifting paint (with the tiny ‘scrubbing brushes’)to make highlights

: adding colour in very thin washes

: brushes (and a propelling pencil), in order of appearance…

: ‘Floating’ – painting in watercolour with gold leaf detail

Commission: Helen Betley’s Windermere swim, with a lot of gold leaf

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Thought you might like to see a painting I finished before Christmas. Last year, Helen Betley swam the length of Windermere… butterfly! Her husband asked if I could paint a painting of the swim. I don’t generally do landscape paintings, (as actual paintings, rather than digital drawings) but I do do a lot of figure drawings, and gold leaf, so I suggested this combination as a bold composition, rather than a straight painting of someone swimming. All the leaf is gold, the different colours are different alloys of gold, and it’s all applied piece by piece, with a paintbrush as it’s too delicate to pick up. The rest is pencil and a watercolour wash, and the little folly is really there on the shore of Windermere, but I added the inscription in my drawing, as a detail to commemorate the swim.

All the photographs are of the same painting – the gold leaf changes so much with different light you may think there is more than one version.

Finished painting – photo 1

Finished painting – photo 2

One of the photos I worked from

Photo elements re-arranged

Sketch for painting

Detail of painting – Helen with hat details

Detail of painting – Helen

Detail of painting – The Folly, with swim details

Finished painting – photo 3

Finished painting – photo 4

Winter Sun

The Wednesday Swimmers

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The finished painting.

This is Sally, Wendy and Cecily (left to right), who often swim on a Wednesday morning at Vobster. I particularly like swimming with them when I get a chance: there is much mucking about, diving, somersaulting, comedy renditions of synchro swimming. Occasionally there is swimming too. It’s all very good material for art: Sally takes fabulous photos, I take snaps by the simple method of pointing the camera in the general direction of the subject while repeatedly pressing the shutter for as long as I can hold my breath, but they are exactly what I need for paintings afterwards.

This is watercolour with gold and palladium leaf, quite big: about 19 x 22 inches. I took photos of the work in progress and posted them as I did each stage on my facebook profile, a slightly unnerving experience as at the start I had a large number of comments that said ‘leave it as it is’ …no pressure not to mess it up then! Here is the full sequence.

I have prints of this painting in my Etsy shop: www.waterdrawnart.etsy.com, and at time of writing this painting is also for sale, though I’ve also earmarked it for an exhibition in Clevedon in October (more on that later…).

The photos

Sketches

Pencil outlines and underpainting in Prussian blue

…Prussian Blue….

…more Prussian Blue…

…you know what colour this is by now!

Lots of thin layers of very translucent yellow with a hint of red/magenta

A little more colour, and the highlights put back in by lifting off a little of the colour wash where light catches the skin and for the sunbeams through the water.

The finished painting. This is a scan and a more faithful representation of the colours than the previous photos.

Detail of tiny fragments of gold leaf

Close-up

Details…

Finally, gold and palladium leaf fragments, lots of them.

The metal leaf fragments, catching the light.

Lisa

The Angel of Grasmere

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The Angel of Grasmere

This painting was from a photo I took of my friend Jackie in Grasmere in Cumbria, late last summer. Unlike the blue water of Vobster, where I’ve taken many many underwater photos, Grasmere has peaty brown-coloured water, but it was still quite clear, so that the sunlight that filtered through was golden, and the reflection of Jackie’s arms on the underside of the water spread out like two huge wings.

The painting is in watercolour on paper, with a lot of gold leaf on the ‘wings’. It’s about 29 x 12 inches and at the time of writing this it’s currently still available for sale.
I also have prints in my Etsy shop: http://www.waterdrawnart.etsy.com