What do you feed magpies? Almond Blossom Still Life

Almond Blossom Still Life

Oil, palette knife painting

24x30cm (approx 10x12inch)

On MDF canvas panel
Available on Daily Paintworks

We have an almond tree in the corner of the garden. It was here when we moved in nearly 10 years ago and I suspect it is about 40 years old. It receives absolutely no attention (apart from a good looking at!) but produces masses of blossoms and almonds every year. We don't profit from the almonds though, as the magpies get in first.

About this painting
Although the canvas panel is primed and could be painted on straight away, I always prime my panels with additional gesso. I have two reasons for this
- I prefer the feel of the fresh gesso
- the gesso adds some texture

The background is fairly smooth on this painting. I scraped back some of the paint which also has the effect of blending. On top of that I added more paint always with a slightly different hue. This produces so lovely rich layers. For the blossoms I loaded my palette knife with really thick paint and 'ladled' it on, leaving it and impasto. I love the effect this gives. The vase is one of a set of three which can only be described as square/triangular and makes for interesting painting.
Some close-ups

Anthuriums on Parade

Anthuriums on Parade

Oil pastel painting by Marion Hedger

 A local botanical garden has several different types of antheriums in their glasshouse and I think they make fascinating subjects. I couldn't resist this composition and trying to capture that smooth waxiness of the petals.

Last of the Summer Magnolias

Last of the Summer Magnolias

40x40 cm
Acrylic on boxed canvas

I have a beautiful Magnolia Grandiflora in the garden that is over 10 metres high but I have never completed a painting of the magnolias. Towards the end of summer I thought 'Oh no I'm going to miss it again' so I immediately picked one and plonked it in a jug. It was just past it's prime but as the last one left I decided to go ahead.
I used a black boxed canvas, sketched the design using a white watercolour pencil and started to block in the darks and lights.

 

 Followed by a few more and gradually adding more colour.

This is with more local colour. It always looks quite scary at this stage.

I added more and more white and colour gradually lightening the petals, the next photos show the coming to life of the flower.

 

 I used white gesso to smooth out the form of the petal, and also mixed it with some shadow colours to soften up the graduation from light to dark.

 

I wanted to get the feeling of the heaviness of the flower but to show it's beauty was already disappearing. I hope I achieved some of that feeling.

Poppy Medley

Poppy Medley 30x30cm coloured pencil on sanded card.

 

This painting is from the May Plant Parade challenge on Wet Canvas. I cropped one of the photos and painted the underpainting in my usual way but this time using water solouble neopastel and water to  cover the paper. I have used the neopastels for the under painting on several oil pastel paintings and it works well for me.

 Initially I planned to do this painting in oil pastels, but something made me decide to use coloured pencil which I hadn't used for quite a while.
I sharpened my pencils and set to work on stage 2 - making the colours look 'real'

 This is the stage where it starts to look more like the objects. I decided that I need more of this 'colouring' stage and here is stage 2.2

Definitely starting to look like flowers now!
Stage 3 is finding the changes in plane and lights and shadows on the petals by dividing the larger masses into smaller masses.

The light through the petals is starting to show.

Stage 4 is more of the same - splitting the masses and really looking at the colours and pushing them and putting in that all important centre of the main poppy.
I enjoyed painting this one and the coloured pencils worked well on the sanded paper which did not use up the pencils as much as I thought they would.

Flower studies in pastels

I challenged myself by setting a time limit for these two studies. I allowed myself 20 minutes for each.

I wanted to see if I could achieve a nice loose painterly feel, which I think I have managed. Both of these studies are in soft pastel, on Fisher sanded paper. Both are 20x20cm (8"x8").

The pink rudbeckia painting is my favourite as I love that combination of the pink with the turquoise and I like the lively feel of this one.

I have used this image to create a blank art card available from GCU
Pink Rudbecka Fine Art Card

The mimosa painting was looking a bit dull and I wondered what could be done to liven it up. I remembered a tip I'd been given by another wet canvas member (colorix). Using a grater I grated some soft pastel in yellow and dark green over the painting. This was very effective. I was surprised about how effective this was. A little bit, went a long way. I then pressed the gratings into the paper by applying pressure to a piece of tracing paper laid over the top. The 'bits' have stayed firmly in place.

Mimosa is grown here commercially on the Cote d'azur mainly for the perfume industry in Grasse. In late January/beginning February the hills around Cannes are covered in yellow. A wonderful sight.

I have used this image to create a blank art card available from GCU Mimosa Fine Art Card

Parrot Tulip Dance Pastel Painting

PARROT TULIP DANCE
Soft Pastel 40 x 60cm on wallis paper

This painting was created from a photo I took at a local village flower show. The flower show is an annual event and the whole village including the castle/chateau is festooned with flower arrangements. It really is a must to see if you are ever in the French riviera in April.

Following on from painting pastels the colourful way, I decided to try the technique on a flower subject and the vibrancy of these parrot tulips just cried out to be painted.

Step 1 - I drew the parrot tulips and blocked in with colour, using cold colours for the darks and warm colours for the lights.

Step 2

Overpainting the underpainting to make the colours 'look right'.

Definitely a strange looking stage.

Step 3

Dividing the blocks of colour into 3 or 4 areas and finding the light and dark planes.

Starting to look like the parrot tulip

Step 4

Is a continuation of step 3. Dividing each of the areas created in step 3 again into 3 or 4 and digging deeper to find the changes in plane and colour. Any detail is also added in this last step.

Spring Freesia Posy Painting

This is one of my latest paintings.

"Spring Freesias" on colorfix paper. 24x30cm.

Along with the daffodils the freesias were some of the first flowers to appear in the garden, and they gave it such a lift after the bareness of winter. I picked a bunch and their colours inspired me to paint them. I had some dark blue coloured colorfix paper and decided to try coloured pencils. I am not very experienced with coloured pencils but was pleased with the outcome.

I like working on a dark background as it can make the colours 'sing' and often use dark backgrounds for my acrylic and pastel paintings. With the pencils it was difficult to establish the whites, but they did eventually come forward.

Here are some WIP photos.

I started off with a drawing of the posy. I then traced this onto tracing paper. I don't normally do this but as the background was dark and I didn't want to damage the colorfix ground, I thought it necessary in this instance.

To transfer the image, I coated the back of the tracing paper with chalk and then traced it onto the colorfix using a coloured pencil so that I could see where I had been!

I then started to block in the colours and continued in this vein laying lots of layers of colours on the way. Finally I fixed it and laid in a final layer of colour. The white needed a few more layers than the other colors but came good in the end.