Pink Hydrangeas still life palette knife painting

Pink Hydrangeas still life

palette knife painting

Oil on canvas panel, 30cmx30cm (12x12inch)

Available in my Etsy store

I am harking back to summer with this painting. These hydrangeas, picked from the garden, come from bushes that were in the garden when we arrived. They have some massive blooms, but they do need to be kept watered in the summer - not easy in the Provence summer.

Cyber Monday discount in my Etsy store

I am offering a discount on all purchases in my Etsy store until cyber Monday. Use coupon code 2013BLACKFRIDAY at checkout.

Sweet Memories - Roses still life palette knfie painting

Sweet Memories - Roses still life

palette knife paintings

24x30cm (approx 10x12inches)

Oil on canvas panel 
Available in my Etsy store

Another rose still life. I wanted a soft low key effect on this one. Here are some close-ups of the knife work

Old Fashioned - Roses still life

 Old Fashioned

Roses still life palette knife painting

24x30cm (approx 10x12")

Oil on canvas panel
Purchase information

I enjoyed painting my Ikebana series so much, I carried on painting a couple of still lifes featuring roses. This is the first and I will post the second tomorrow.

My aim was to pay particular attention to the lost and found edges and I'm quite pleased with the effect. Unfortunately the camera always make the edges of palette knife paintings seem sharper than they are.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Ikebana 4 - Burnt orange chrysanthemums Palette knife painting

Ikebana 4 - Burnt Orange Chrysanthemums

Oil on canvas panel

24x30 cm (approx 10x12inch)

Palette knife painting
100€, international shipping included

The last of the Ikebana quartet, (but I have reworked No.2 and will post that tomorrow). I enjoyed painting this group of flowers, keeping things very loose and free and using lots of paint.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Ikebana 3 - Yellow Chrysanthemums palette knife painting in oils

Ikebana 3 - Yellow Chrysanthemums

Palette knife oil painting on canvas panel

18x24 cm (approx 7x10 inch)

 I wanted to explore a dramatic background in this painting and use a different colour combination than my norm. It's good to try something different now and again to keep the paintings 'fresh'. I really like how this one turned out
Visit the first two paintings of the quartet, Ikebana 1 and Ikebana 2

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Ikebana 2 - white chrsanthemums

Ikebana 2 White Chrysanthemums

Oil on canvas panel

Palette knife painting

18x24cm (approx 7x10inch)

Painting No.2 in my quartet of ikebana paintings.

Of the four paintings I feel that this one is the least successful and needs further work. The chrysanths are the type that have a round head but with the lower petals hanging down. I haven't quite captured that here and I also need to do something about the vase. I will post the rework over the next couple of days.

See the post for the first painting HERE

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Ikebana 1 - Pink Chrysanthemums

Ikebana 1 - Pink Chrysanthemums

22x27cm (approx  9"x11")

oil on canvas board

Palette knife painting

I've taken a break from painting landscapes for the last couple of dates to paint some floral still lifes.

I was given a book on Ikebana by a neighbour and this started me thinking about this month's challenge on the floral forum of wetcanvas.com. This painting is inspired by the book, the challenge and my imagination.

It is the first time I have painted chrysanths and I wanted to achieve an ethereal 'look' in the painting. I used a very limited palette and started with an indistinct background using my main colours. I liked the result, if I was to do it again, I would probably make the flowers larger and blend them in more with some of the green. What do you think?

I liked the idea of using Ikebana as the basis of the painting and I have completed four paintings for the challenge so I will post another tomorrow.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE 

Give a gift of an original artwork, or gift certificate to family and friends. I will gladly gift wrap a painting and send it directly to the recipient with a gift tag. 

Pendulous Petunias, oil painting

 Pendulous Petunias

Oil on canvas panel

24x18cm (approx 7x10")

palette knife painting

Bid on this painting on DPW Here

This painting was part of my 30 days hath September challenge which I have placed for auction on Daily Paintworks.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

My smaller paintings make excellent gifts. I will also gift wrap a painting and sending direct to the recipient if you prefer.

Iris Dancing Queens Final - oil painting

 Iris Dancing Queens

Palette knife painting

18x24cm (approx 7x10inch)

oil on canvas MDF panel

I worked on this a little more today, adding a few holes between the irises, some pink and more colour to the background. I am calling it done.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Iris Dancing Queens, oil palette knife painting, Day 30, 30 days hath September challenge

Iris Dancing Queens

Palette knife painting

18x24cm (approx 7x10inch)

oil on canvas MDF panel

These irises are the first flowers that pop up in my spring garden. They are always a welcome sign that spring is arriving. I think I need to put in some sky (in this case wall) holes to give the irises some breathing space. Normally I would let the painting stand for a couple of days and paint the finishing touches before posting, but the as I am posting them immediately some will need final adjustments. I think the next time I am involved in a challenge I need to go smaller LOL

Iris Dancing Queens is the last of the paintings in the challenge. I started with a floral and finish with a floral. A big drum roll please ........ I painted 30 and posted everyday. It certainly was a worthwhile challenge to participate in, and a big thank you to Lesle Saeta for coming up with the idea and hosting everyone's entries. A welcome bonus of the challenge is that I have also got to see lots of other artwork.


I mainly concentrated on landscapes for this challenge so please visit my Joy of Colour blog to see the other entries. It wasn't intentional as I didn't have any plans at all and just painted the ideas that came to mind as time went on.

Hanging Wisteria - watercolour abstract

 

Hanging Wisteria watercolour

35x24cm on NOT watercolour paper

For sale in my Etsy store, see HERE

A loose and free painting of wisterias. I wet the paper and painted most of this wet-in-wet. Gradually as it dried I added more and more details.

I like the colours and effect of this one and I had fun doing it.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Peach Rose oil painting - Day 22, 30 days hath September challenge

Peach Rose

Oil palette knife painting

15x15cm (6"x6") on gessoed panel

Day 22, 30 days hath September challenge

 I had a fancy to paint roses today, so chose a small piece of prepared MDF with a pink ground. This is my first palette knife rose and is a study for a larger piece. In the last rose I painted I uses a gentle blending technique and I'm finding that I have to stop myself blending too much as I still want the impasto look.
Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Petunia Bonus oil painting, Day 21, 30 days hath September

Petunia Bonus oil painting

18x24cm

Oil on MDF canvas panel

Day 21, 30 days hath September

This painting is a bonus. Every year I buy several hanging baskets in the spring, like most of us do, of course. The petunias last until about the middle of August and then just seem to fade. 

I put this pot of petunias at the back of the garden (I hate throwing away any sort of plant). Early this week I saw that it had sprung back to life and the petunias were so nice and bright. I placed them on a ledge to admire them and then a shaft of sunlight hit them lighting them up nicely. Of course I had to paint them - hence the title.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

30 days hath September 30 paintings in 30 days challenge

I've been a bit quiet on this blog since my last post. It is not because I haven't been painting, but because I've been painting and posting them on my daily painting blog. I thought I would give you a taster of what I have been busy with and invite you to have a look HERE

Tomorrow I will post a floral painting I painted today.

Dancing Queens - Day 2 30 days hath September

Dancing Queens - Rudbeckias

Day 2 30 Days Hath September Challenge

Oil on gessoed panel, palette knife painting

15x20cm (6"x8")

The second painting in the challenge and I am no more organised than yesterday. I have been wanting to paint my rudbeckias for the last few weeks so the perfect challenge for today. I used a prepared gessoed MDF panel that I had painted with a blue and pink underpainting. There's was quite a bit of texture on the panel so I decided to use thick paint applied with a palette knife to compliment the background.



See yesterday's painting HERE

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

30 days hath September daily painting challenge

1. Fuchsias

30 Days hath September Challenge

18x24cm oil on canvas panel

I am taking part in Leslie Seata's blog challenge to paint a daily painting each day in September. I am already running behind and I haven't organised my self at all. I had family over all summer long and the last ones left yesterday.
I painted this quite quickly this morning to get me into the swing of things. I may do some more on this one later, but I am liking the effect.

I am not sure if I will do a theme or just go with the flow each day. I still have to catalogue my 101 garden series, and I am not even sure of how many I painted, but I do know that I improved as time went on and lost my fear of 'just going for it'.
It was fun to do, although frustrating at times.
Here are a couple of my garden 101 paintings

Pink Lavetera

18cmx24cm, oil on canvas panel

Click here to purchase

Sunny geraniums

18cmx24cm, oil on canvas panel

Click here to purchase

Hibiscus Syringia

18cmx24cm, oil on canvas panel

Click here to purchase

White Hydrangeas

Summer is a pretty dry time in my garden. After the beautiful flush of flowers in June and sometimes goes into July, the garden dries out and the flowers go into a sort of hibernation. They usually rejuvenate again in September and give me a second flush of colour.

I made a mistake this year with my white hydrangeas, I cut them almost to ground level. I was reading the instructions and merrily went ahead. It was only when I had finished I discovered that I was reading the wrong label and should not have pruned them at all! I was so annoyed with myself. I did get a few flowers but nothing that matched their splendour last year.
Here is a painting from last year that shows how big these hydrangea flowers get:

White Hydrangeas

Oil on canvas panel

30x30cm

This painting is for sale on Dailypaintworks HERE

Blue Trio Clematis painting in acrylic.

Blue Trio Clematis painting

40x60cm

Acrylic on box canvas so no need for a frame

Click here to purchase

I painted this clematis painting en plein aire a few years ago. I liked the composition but struggled with the background and eventually settled on a yellow complement background. It has been hanging on my wall since then but the background always bugged me. Last week I had the urge to redo the background and settled on this pale ochre background with a touch of orange. I like it a lot now and I think sets off the clematis flowers nicely. Unfortunately, I lost my previous photos in a computer crash so cannot show you the old painting for comparison. It is funny how some paintings have to sit for a while waiting for the right time for inspiration to strike and become finished.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

A Taste of Summer painting SOLD

I participated in another street exhibition yesterday. I sold four small paintings and imagine my surprise when I arrived home and found I had also sold "A taste of Summer" through my Etsy store

 "A taste of summer" sunflower and lavender painting

19x27cm, oil on canvas board, palette knife painting
SOLD

Visit my other paintings for sale in my Etsy store HERE

Poppy sunshine trio oil painting

 Poppy sunshine trio

20x40cm (8"x16") oil on thick box canvas

canvas sides are painted dark blue so can be hung without a frame

See here to purchase

Today I just felt like painting poppies.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Floral Paintings Display

I am part of a group of local artists called "Peintres dans la rue" (Painters in the street). During the summer months we exhibit our paintings in the streets of the perched villages that this area is known for. It is always a wonderful backdrop for the paintings. Yesterday we exhibited in Le Rouret. It was a beautiful day and the plane trees in the square provided lots of shade.
Here are some of my florals displayed on a stand my husband made for me.

Contact me about for more information HERE

Container Colour garden flowers oil painting

 Container colour

18x24cm (approx 7"x10")

Oil on MDF canvas panel

Started paitning using a brush and finished with a palette knife

 Another painting of my container plants. This one has some lovely coral coloured pelargoniums (trailing geraniums). I wondered how I was going to translate that wonderful colour in paint. After deliberating which red to use, it turned out to be quite simple. With my last order of paints I purchased some Scarlet Lake, a colour I had never used before. When I mixed it with white, the perfect coral hues appeared.

Here are some WIP photos.
Step 1 - I used a red ground, which in hindsight was the wrong choice. Something that contrasted with the coral would have been better and would have made it easier to give the coral colour more pizazz.

I used a thin wash of paint to block in the local colours.

Step 2
More colour and thicker paint added trying to define the lights.

Step 3
In step 3 involved using more of the palette knife and adding more shadow and highlights using thicker paint for the highlights. I also added more breathing space to the upright geraniums and lightened the background. Unfortunately I was so involved in painting I forgot to take a photo.
 
Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

I painted some of my container geraniums last year. See HERE and HERE

Container Glory garden flowers, container flowers WIP

Container glory oil painting

18x24cm (approx 7"x10")

oil on MDF canvas panel

Started using a brush and finished using a palette knife

This painting is for sale in my Etsy shop
or contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Step 1, Loose block in of the local colours using thin paint

 Step 2, starting to define the masses using thicker paint alternating between the brush and knife

Step 3, just using the knife now and thicker paint, looking at the shadows and highlights to get a more 3D effect

I reduced some of the busyness in the top right hand corner and added more highlights and shadows. I also made sure I had more 'breathing space' at the top of the flowers as I felt it was a bit too dense. I also made sure the colours were balanced adding a bit of red to the purples and some purples to the reds.

I painted some of my container geraniums last year. See HERE and HERE

wetcanvas.com floral forum June project results.

At the beginning of the month, I mentioned that I was hosting a forum project on wetcanvas.com. The theme for the month was painting rhododendrons in any medium but paying attention to edges i.e. trying to use hard, soft and lost and found edges. All entries have now been revealed and here is the gallery of all the paintings

I think you will agree, this is a great gallery of paintings. I've been a fan of wetcanvas.com for a while. All artists help one another and projects like these help all artists, at whatever level, to connect and join in.
Well done to one and all.

I have to admit, I don't like my entry and will look at it a while before I correct some of it and post as an individual entry.

The July project is now up and running, with the theme of weeds aka wild flowers. Why not join in. The link can be found HERE

Contact me about any of my paintings HERE

Looking up, Pink Lilies painting in oils

Looking Up, Pink Lilies

18x24cm (approx 7"x10")

Oil on canvas panel, 
painted with a brush and finished with a palette knife.

Each spring I plant up several containers with a mix of flowers. Several years ago I planted several containers with lily bulbs. Once they stop flowing they are put into a corner of the garden and forgotten about. But each year they perform wonderfully. Their only care is watering and a bit of feed. These are lilies from one of those containers. Painted alla prima, in situ. It's lovely painting outside, but the sun does have a habit of moving around making it difficult to catch the light. You have to make up your mind early on where the lights and darks are to be placed.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Paint Rhododendrons - come join me in the June Plant Parade

I am hosting the June Plant Parade on wetcanvas.com. This is a monthly project in the Florals and Botanical forum of WetCanvas.
The featured flower is the Rhododendron and the challenge is composition and edges.
Pop over and take a look, and why not join in the floral painting get-together?

Here is the LINK JUNE PLANT PARADE

If you are not already a member of wetcanvas. Sign up for it, it's free and there is a whole heap of information and inspiration for painters. You will have to post two messages before you can upload any photos. 

"A taste of summer" sunflower and lavender palette knife oil painting.

 "A taste of summer" sunflower and lavender painting

19x27cm, oil on canvas board, palette knife painting
SOLD

This is a rework of one of my Garden 101 series and fresh off the easel today. At the time, I put it in my discard pile, as, although I liked the concept, the painting did not come out as expected.

I am not having a lot of success with my iris paintings at the moment, so as a change, I got this painting out and reworked it using a palette knife and fresher looking paint.
I really like it now. Quite loose and fresh looking to my eyes. Let me know what you think.
This painting is sold, contact me about any other painting HERE

Iris season is with us

 Last Saturday saw our annual pilgrimage to 'Iris en Provence' iris nursery/farm located near Hyeres. It's quite a long drive from home but we make a day of it by taking the coast road along the riviera. It is only a small place but the different varieties of iris they have are superb. The colours are sublime. Of course I always come away with a car full of new irises, which is a bit of a hit on the wallet but well worth it. The irises I bought last year are just coming into bloom in the garden, so watch out for a new batch of iris paintings.
Here are a few photos to whet your appetite.

 Variety Teamwork

 Variety World Premier

 Variety Rustler

Click here to see my white iris painting of one I bought two years ago. This was painted last year.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Etsy promotion - free shipping in France and Europe

Give Mum something special - flowers that last.

Florals for sale in my Etsy shop CLICK HERE

Opération freeshippingfrance spécial fête des mères : frais de ports gratuits pour tous les envois vers la France

I am taking part in the French Etsy promotion of free shipping in France for Mother's Day - Use coupon code FREESHIPPINGFRANCE at check-out.
I am extending this to all of Europe for my blog readers. You will initially be charged the shipping, but I will refund the shipping costs.

Contact me about any painting HERE

Pansy Dance Palette Knife oil painting

 Pansy dance
24x30cm (approx 10"x12"), oil on canvas panel.
Painted with palette knife

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The final in my quartet of pansy paintings, again with the casserole but painted larger and with a palette knife. Once again, unsure of the lid and I am debating whether or not it needs the pattern on the casserole. Also I am not sure of that dark background. C&C gratefully received.
Take a look at my other pansy paintings HERE

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Casseroled Pansies oil painting

Casseroled Pansies

Oil on canvas panel

18x24cm (approx 7"x11")

The third of my pansy paintings, this time in one of my favourite little casseroles. As well as going into the oven, this casserole will also go onto an open flame or electric element. I unpotted the pansies, and much to their disgust, I squashed the roots into the casserole (it is quite small) to give me this arrangement.

I am not sure about the lid? It looks sort of OK but every now and then, it bothers me - I've been looking at it for a few days and I am unsure of whether or not to correct it. Hubby says leave it alone - it looks OK. What do you think?

I painted a second, slightly larger on of this composition which I will post soon. You'll be pleased to know, I rescued the pansies and re-potted them, lol.


Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

You may also be interested in my first two pansy paintings:
Pansy Fever and Colourful Pansies 

Pansy Fever Oil Painting

 Pansy Fever by Marion Hedger

Oil on canvas board 24x30cm (approx 10" x 12")

Painted wet in wet.

Another pansy painting straight off the easel. I love painting these pansies, and those yellow ones really talk to me. This is slightly larger than my earlier pansy painting (see HERE) and more of a still life composition. I painted it wet in wet, trying to stay loose. I succeeded in parts, but I still find myself trying to put in all the details.
This is still wet and I will look at it tomorrow to see what needs tweaking. Those blue shadows are too blue in this photo, so I will also see if I can get a better photo. I always have trouble with photographing blues.

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE