Thirty Day Vellum Challenge Concludes....feathers, bugs and a few old favourites

Having made a late start to the challenge on Sept 5th, I was a bit worried that it wasn't going to be possible to paint 30 small vellum works in the 25 remaining days in September but forged ahead regardless but as predicted fell short of the full 30. I posted the first 10 previously so here are the remaining 15 - in no particular order. These are quick snaps taken on the phone but I'll photograph them properly before uploading to my Etsy shop where they will be for sale. All are painted life size with the exception of the feathers (x1.5)

No 17. Peacock Feather, collected from the David Austin Garden back in July. I try to find one of the feathers every time I go there. The contrast from the glossy vibrant top compared to the downy base make this a great subject. It also has the tiny distinctive barbs which are tricky to paint at this size...W& N series 7 miniature, size 1 required! Colours winsor blue green shade and winsor green blue shade with some violet dioxazine. the feathery base is a mix of paynes grey and van dyke brown. I scratched away a few small highlights. This image is approx 4 x 3.5 inches.

It was a good opportunity for me to paint a few things that I might not normally have time for, such as feathers and insects.Feathers are great subjects because they are very ordered and smooth at the top but also have the light floaty base which is great to paint. Definitely a good exercise in painting texture!

Number 16 The first small  Peacock feather painted. It has a very iridescent tip and great colour. I added a little of the Daniel Smith iridescent paint but I don't think it really added that much. I also used some titanium white on the downy parts but wished I hadn't, again not needed.

No. 20 Another peacock feather, such a beautiful colour I don't think I do it justice, might try it again sometime I particularly like how the light catches one side of the feather and makes it so vibrant, whereas the other side appears quite dull until it's turned to the light and become this electric blue/ I used winsor blue green shade and prussian blue wit some winsor green ( blue shade). Both colours that I would almost never use in a botanical painting....with the exception of the Jade vine.

No. 19,  I love this very small peacock feather, it's not one that I would recognise from this beautiful bird. Its very delicate and floaty

No. 22. Small Pigeon feather from down the lane. I'd found  a dead bird at the roadside so collected a few of it's feathers. This is on natural vellum using titanium white over a mix of paynes grey and van dyke brown washes. Not sure if it works or not.

Insects are always fun to paint on vellum, so I added a couple from my daughters collection. I had intended to do more but had to spend a few days away unexpectedly.

No. 11 Gorgeous red beetle. The colours change in the light shimmering from red to green and making this very tricky. Vellum has to be the perfect surface to achieve these rich colours, shine and fine detail. Image is approx 2.5 x 2.5 inches

Another Flower beetle for day 12. The white spot are easily removed from vellum with a scalpel so much easier than using masking fluid on paper. I also added a touch of titanium white on the spots catching the light to make it brighter than the background vellum colour.

Of course I also painted some of the more usual subject material for a 30 day challenge and there's no better time for this than late summer/autumn here in the UK. I did want to avoid repeating too many of subjects previously painted so although the rose hips were tempting I gave them a miss this year but couldn't resist the acorns again.

I did this in one day but I'm claiming it as days 15-17 because there are 3. Again collected from the graveyard next to my flat. These are pretty tiny acorns which I thought really cute.

No. 23, A lichen encrusted branch on Natural vellum. I did this very quickly, maybe 90 minutes in total so it's less detailed but I quite like a less detailed finish on natural vellum.

No. 24, This old leaf was found in the lane and really was falling apart, there was no shine on it but I liked the holes and decay

No. 14 I discovered a patch of Arum fruits at the bottom of the lane which had been trampled on, so managed to rescue this one and paint it  before all the fruits fell off

Day 18 - this one was featured in last weeks post - along with a video of the painting process

Out of time! I made a start  on this honeysuckle fruit but have too many other things to do.... so that's all folks!

Day 9, An Iris Seed Pod and some other exciting things!

It's actually day 10 but I'm a day behind after being away in London for the SBA annual exhibition. Haven't exhibited  for a few years, so it was really nice to be back on track and involved again.
I arrived home late last night full of enthusiasm and got up early to catch up with the challenge! Something small seemed a good idea so I chose to paint a small Iris seed-head, which was given to me last year by fellow artist and friend, Jarnie Godwin, aka Sketchbook Squirrel 
It's painted on Kelmscott vellum, funny enough it's a small off cut from one of the works for this years SBA show..

A quick vellum painting of an Iris seedpod for day 9

 I started on paper but decided that vellum would be better for this subject. it's always great for these dried subjects. I wasn't sure that I could do it quickly but it seemed to work. It could do with a bit more work but with only a short amount of time it was OK. Might add the seeds later on.

I'll maybe add the seeds and the other side of the pod later on. Apologies for the lack of information and photos, short on time 

today!

SBA Exhibition and new Work
 My two entries for the SBA show this year were Fritillaries, the F. imperialis is the largest painting that I've completed on vellum. The second painting was a small painting on vellum of F. meleagris. I was delighted to hear that I got an honourable mention for the F. meleagris, which goes to show that small paintings get noticed too! The F. imperialis was hard work ( see my previous post ) ......but not deterred by the scale of the task I've already ordered another whole skin and can't wait to get started. I was totally in awe at some of the work a this years show so definitely need to practice for next year now. I already have some ideas for what is a very exciting title subject. I'm going to focus on the theme of pattern for next year, which is an area Ive always had an interest in.

One of this years SBA entries, Fritillarie imperialis Rubra painted on a whole skin of Kelmscott vellum

I wasn't at the opening for very long but even in that short time it was lovely to meet so many other artists. Seems like the standard just keeps getting higher and it's a much more connected community of artists compared to the first time I exhibited withh the SBA back in 2002, I think that's all thanks to the internet, and supportes such as Katherine Tyrell with her Making a Mark blog, and of course to social media too. The ever increasing standard is probably due to the SBA diploma course which continues to bring more amazing new artists together every year. So it's all good and very exciting times ahead for botanical art.

A detain from the small F. meleagris painting, also at this years show

New Prints
One other exciting bit of news for me,  is that I spent an afternoon at the printers last Tuesday and picked up the first proofs for my new limited edition prints of the butterflies. I'm getting the proofs for two more works, the Fritillaria meleagris on Rory McEwen vellum and the Leaf Skeleton and Lichen Branch...all three are on vellum. It's not easy to get good prints of work on vellum but so far I'm pleased with the results and found a great photographer / printer who seems to understand the subtleties of watercolours..... probably helps that his wife is a watercolour artist too. Here's a snapshot I took of the first proofs, doesn't do them justice but the colour match and image quality is excellent. I'm trying to decide whether to print the butterflies life size or larger......never was very good at decision making!  Will post better photos shortly

Not a great photo but here are the first proofs for the butterfly prints... hot off the press!

My other painting currently at the printers

That all for now, time to take my daughter back to University after the Easter break, so back to the challenge again tomorrow. 

Back to Vellum and the Blog's Birthday

Last week marked 7 years of blogging for me! it's been interesting to look back and see what's happened in that time. The first image I ever posted on the blog was my very first painting on vellum, so it seems fitting to write a post about my latest work on the surface.

My most recent work on vellum, Three British Butterflies on manuscript vellum 2015 ( Comma, Red Admiral and Peacock abberation, painted life size)

My first painting on vellum, Foxglove dissection on Kelmscott vellum (6 x 4 inches)  painted during the summer 2007. I had grown the foxgloves from seed in my garden in Scotland. I've since moved house and the foxgloves have long gone but I can remember them clearly, they sprouted everywhere and were enormous!

Last week I had intended to start a larger work but got side-tracked by the butterflies.  I think it's fair to say that any large painting requires a significant amount of planning and practice, and none more so than a painting on vellum.  A decision had been made and the time had come to crack on with a painting I'd started preparing around 18 months ago... but it has been a slow start, full of distractions and not an awful lot has been achieved during the week. I don't see this as wasted time but rather part of the 'warming up' process. When I start a new painting I can never be sure whether or not it will work out but  I'm pretty sure that the more planning is put into a large pieces  - the less likely it is to go wrong! I'd like to have done more this last week but sometimes we have to accept it's a slow process. So I deviated from the large painting with some butterflies and moths as a warm up exercise. They're great little subjects to ease back into painting on vellum. I always find that painting on vellum it takes a couple of days to ease back into the technique. So two whole days were spent painting insects.

The process of building up the layers of paint on the peacock. Laying down the veins and outline first and then building up from light to dark. As a last minute addition I also used a very small amount of titanium white to dry brush  shiny white wing markings, this stands out well because the creamy colour of the vellum.

The finished Peacock, with its warning colours and large eye markings. This one is a abberation, with blurred eye markings. 

Adding the first wash to the final butterfly, The Comma.

The Comma butterfly. Again, working from light to dark. Marking out the viens first, followed by a light wash of the golden yellow mix ( transparent yellow and scarlet lake), thereafter various dry brush techniques were employed to build up the rich browns and patterns.  

Detail of the wing, showing the build up of the wing patters using 'dry brush' to create the scales and hairs on the delicate wings.

 The butterflies had  made a welcome change. I took me back to my days at  the University of Aberdeen, where I studied evolution as part of my degree some years ago. It was great to revisit mimicry in the wings of these beautiful creatures. As for painting butterflies, the process is the same as it is for plants. The manuscript vellum is slightly more challenging as a surface compared to Kelmscott, it's also quite a bit thinner. Darker and highly saturated colours are the most difficult to build up on the surface, simply because the paint sits on the surface and doesn't sink in, so the reds and blacks are good practise. With vellum it's not possible to use the same amount of washes as on paper, so after the initial controlled wash has been applied, the 'dry brush techniques must be used. Sweeping stokes and a form of 'modelling' dry brush techniques (similar to stippling but very dry) must be used to create form and the softness of the wings, and a 'drawing' style dry brush technique is used last to add the finer details.

Eyed Hawkmoth, watercolour on natural vellum, a subjec that really suits the warm tones of the skin. The 'eyes' of this moth  are a form of  mimicry which has evolved through natural selection to scare off predators. I might write a post about this it's a fascinating area several different type sof mimicry.

I used up a few small off cuts of manuscript and natural vellum for the moths and butterflies, the latter being off cuts from a whole skin. The natural vellum felt perfect for moths and I hope to paint more, it seems to work well for the scaley paterned wings.  After spending a couple of days painting the insects It was time to move on the the large autumnal painting but I will definitly paint more in the future.

Moving on
My current work is a fairly large painting  52 x 72 cm of autumnal subjects on natural vellum, as I've mentioned I had planned this some time ago, see this previous post. The idea was born from  the 30 day challenge works, which were all simple 'spontanious' paintings with no planning. but I felt that collectively they would make an interesting piece. All of the subjects in the piece were collected from my local park.  Life events had forced me to put the work on hold but I hadn't forgotten about it.
 Natural vellum was the obvious choice for the subject matter. The warm tones are sympathetic to the browns and golds of the dead and dying leaves and the rich coloured fruits.

The original inspiration for the piece, I no longer have the subjects so will have to work from my original observation drawings , photographs and some saved dried specimens.

  I opted to buy a whole skin of natural calfskin from William Cowley,  it arrived rolled onto a cardboard tube. Only one surface is suitable for painting and when first unrolled the it was a different experience compared to that a of ready cut pieces. The backbone and rib markings were clearly visible, this skin has a beautiful rich warm colour - it's a work of art in its own right! The vein markings should be very much part of the work and need to be considered in the composition, so although the planning of the drawing is icompleted, I want to be prepared to make small changes to accommodate the features of the individual skin.

Cutting the skin, the off- cuts will be used for small studies....maybe more moths

 First of all the skin had to be cut to size - a slightly nerve racking experience but it cuts easily with Stanley knife. Natural vellum is very thin and transparent so must be handled with care, if you've only painted on Kelmscott before this is a different!  Kelmscott is much more robust with a chalk wash coating and allows easy application and lifting of paint. On natural vellum it's hard to lift any paint overworking is a disaster.  The size also makes it difficult, buckling will be a problem if too much water is used. I thought about using a rabbit skin glue to secure it to a board before painting but decided it was too risky because of the size.  I gave the skin a very light rubbing with pumice powder to remove any grease.

I decided to use the A2 light pad to transfer the rough image onto the vellum because it helps to minimise the amount of pencil work on the vellum. It's never  a good thing to have too much pencil line because it makes the paint dirty. In fact I tend to remove the pencil on each section before I add paint leaving only a trace or work just inside the line, removing it after the initial wash.  The light pad worked very well because the vellum is so thin. I used a fairly soft pencil 2B sharpened to a long point to transfer the image and drew a very fine outline.

Using the light pad to trace the rough layout onto vellum, this approach  has the advantage of being able to switch off the light to check which parts have been traced already.....it's easy to get confused when tracing a large piece!

Part of the image traced onto the vellum

The vellum was fixed to the drawing board with Frog Tape. It's a pretty vibrant green colour but is much better than masking tape for securing vellum. It can be covered with normal masking tape if it's too distracting.

Finally! I made a start by applying the first 'wash'. It's not a particularly wet wash but quite controlled and applied in sections between natural divisions, such as leaf veins. Little or no primary material means I have to work from my preparatory sketches and photographs.

Slow Progress! After a day and a half , this is all there is to show.

I spent a day and a half prepping the vellum and made a start but ran out of time. I had a trip to Donegal planned and had to leave it there! .....There's always next week!

Painting on Vellum

I've been painting on Kelmscott vellum for a number of years but recently tried the natural vellum for the first time. Both are available from William Cowley in the UK. I like the look of this vellum because of the warm colour and venation but it's a slightly different experience to paint on compared to the Kelmscott.

Old Rose Hips, on vellum 2013

This is a slight aside from the recent posts but I thought a short piece about painting on different types of vellum might be of interest, given that I'm using vellum for my core work at the moment, and currently teaching an online vellum course. I've also been getting a lot of emails asking about different types of vellum, so maybe there's a renewed interest. I'm discussing the Natural and Kelmscott in this post, however you can also paint on the Classic calfskin and Manuscript vellum, refer to Cowley's website, which provides great information about all types of vellum and parchment too.

Guelder Rose, Virburnum opulus, on vellum, 2013

  To highlight the difference between the two vellum types, you can see in the image below, the darker natural vellum is on the lower right. The other two pieces are both Kelmscott.
Natural vellum does not have the chalk wash surface coating, is thinner, therefore more transparent, has unique venation and warm colouring, it also has a slightly more shiny surface than than Kelmscott. These properties make it more challenging to work on. You need to use even less water than when using Kelmscott. The coating applied to Kelmscott alters the appearance of the vellum making it slightly more opaque but the luminosity is preserved. Kelmscott is no doubt the best surface for the botanical painter and is easier to paint on than natural vellum because you are painting on the surface coat rather than the actual skin. It's a very forgiving surface and errors can easily be removed by rubbing with fine grade pumice or by carefully scraping away a top layer of the coating with a scalpel. If you've never painted on vellum before always start with Kelmscott.

Vellum: Apologies for the boring photo!  The darker natural vellum can be seen bottom right, it's thinner and more transparent. The other two pieces are Kelmscott. The large piece is the Rory McEwen vellum, it has the edge of the skin on two sides and a thicker surface coating, prepared and applied by McEwen compared to the Cowley's Kelmscott on the upper right.  

  Back in 2007 I was gifted a piece of Rory McEwen's vellum,  the large piece seen in the photograph above. It was given to me by the late James White of the Hunt Institute, following the 12th International, which I participated in back in 2007. The Hunt Institute were given his vellum by the family, following McEwen's death in 1982. They gift  pieces to artists who show an interest in working on vellum, at their discretion. I've been a huge fan of Rory McEwen's work for many years,  so it was a great honour. However I haven't felt confident enough to paint on it yet but hope to make a start shortly. So I'm brushing up on my technique at the moment. I find it takes me a day or two to get into the method of painting on vellum. It  requires a very light touch and a lot of dry brush work. I've included some detailed images from my works below to demonstrate.

When working on vellum it's always a good idea to give it a rub down with fine grade pumice powder first. I put it in a small round bag, you can use muslin or I use a piece cut from a pair of ladies tights - works really well! Use small circular motions evenly over the surface.  This removes any grease and blemishes from the surface. I didn't prepare the first piece of natural vellum and it still worked OK but was a bit greasy in places and resisted the paint slightly, but if you work dry enough it's not a problem. For my second attempt I rubbed it down very lightly taking care not to apply any weight.

Detail from old rose hips, using dry brush over an initial wash

Detail from Guelder Rose

Detail of the leaf, showing dry brush and fine line work

Painting on Kelmscott vellum, First layer

Finished paintings on kelmscott

It's also difficult to draw on the natural vellum, I painted directly on to it free hand without drawing for the two paintings shown above. I made a pale under-painting first but there's not much room for error so decided a better approach for more complex compositions would be to use a lightbox, or, if the image is drawn on paper first it could traced with the brush because the vellum is so thin. Pencil work should always be kept to a minimum whatever type of vellum is used because it can be difficult to remove. 

If you are just starting out with vellum. I would recommend starting with something small and simple, such as seed-heads or small fruits, leaves or flowers. The most difficult subjects are large shiny leaves and large smooth surfaced fruits. Building up paints to create such smooth surfaces is difficult territory until you get the hang of it....and wasting vellum is an expensive mistake! 
Always tape down the vellum, although for very small pieces you can actually get away with not securing it. I tape smaller pieces to thick card which is a couple of inches bigger than the vellum, so that I can rotate it. Don't leave tape on the vellum for too long though because it will mark the vellum edge. Large pieces of vellum should be secured to a frame. It can also be glued to a surface to keep it flat.

One of the biggest problems with vellum is buckling,  This is caused by incorrect storage, too hot, cold or damp or using too much water when painting. Water is most certainly the enemy of vellum, so always work fairly dry. I apply only one light 'wash' and then use various dry brush techniques. Pay particular attention to the edges, when applying the first wash - it's not like a typical watercolour wash, because unlike paper the surface of the vellum is non-porous, paint will sit on top - you want to avoid any pooling at the edges, if this happens you need to mop it up  it using a small dry brush, you need to achieve a fairly soft edge. If you get an hard edge  this will create problems later on when the paint becomes too thick, if you try to lift it later you will get into all sorts of problems. It's best to avoid this in the first place by using less water. Thereafter gradually build up the paint in layers of dry brush.  Most of all remember to work work lightly and keep water to a minimum!

Larger work on Kelmscott, life size foxglove, 2011

     

Cherry leaf on Kelmscott, 2010. The background has been lightened for print on this image but it is more cream in colour.

Finally, if you have never painted on vellum before, give it a try, its unique properties are a gift to the botanical painter! and once you become experienced with vellum, you can even buy whole skins and prepare them yourself!

For more information thers's also an article on my website about painting on vellum.