Blackberries on Natural and Kelmscott Vellum

A few weeks ago a deadline loomed, this painting on natural vellum had to be completed before I left home on my travels to the other side of the world. The subject, blackberries, is a great one, simply  because they grow in such abundance, being available over a long period from around end of August until November, and they are beautiful! For me they grow within easy reach - just outside my window and down the lane where I live.

A detail from the painting on natural vellum reveals the dark hair follicles, which are characteristic of a calf skin taken during the cold winter months. The finish is also softer on this vellum when compared to Kelmscott vellum.

Almost finished! you can see the colour and venation in the skin as well as the variation across the skin. I tried to use the veins sympathetically with the composition and could probably have added more, however the clock was ticking and the work was posted on the morning I left for Indonesia! Apologies for the slightly poor photo I didn't have time so took this on an iPhone.

This piece of vellum is cut from a winter calf skin, it presented a few new challenges, most of which I haven't encountered before. The surface of natural vellum has dark hair follicles
and stronger venation also it accepts paint differently across the surface. In some area it seemed to absorb the paint and in others it repelled it due to the oils. The latter problem is resolved by a light rubbing with pumice, which I tie in a bag made from old ladies tights!

Preparing a piece of vellum with fine grade pumice and French chalk fine

 It's also more difficult to achieve shiny highlights on natural vellum but I wanted to avoid the use of any titanium white or gouache, which I think would spoil it in this particular case. The addition of opaque white paint, traditionally known as body colour can work on some subjects but it should not, in my opinion, ever be used as a substitute substitute for poor maintenance of highlights on fruit or leaves but can work for bloom, flower detail and hairs.
In addition to the natural vellum painting I had previously made a smaller study on Kelmscott vellum which is easier to work on, it's also easier to achieve that desired shine but nevertheless I quite liked the softer finish on natural vellum......a different look but still appealing.

A small study  of the fruits on Kelmscott vellum, a much easier surface to paint on because it has a chalk wash which accepts the paint more readily

A detail from the Kelmscott study shows that it's easier to achieve sharper edges and shine when compared to natural vellum, which gives a softer slightly 'diffused; finish.

There's another story behind the Blackberries on natural vellum! It had previously been completely ruined by me, or so I though, when experimenting with mounting vellum on different surfaces this piece had gone very wrong and looked like this! It was bent and crumpled but I was determined to rescue it. Read about how to mount it here in a previous post

A disaster had happened when I tried an early experiment mounting the vellum, it buckled and resisted the glue so I had to remove it leaving this mess. I rescued it by soaking it for about 10 minutes before remounting using a method that I now know works, I used Ampersand conservation board and rabbit skin glues. It was completely smooth after mounting onto board but the board did bend ever so slightly. 

I don't consider myself to be a fruit painter but blackberries are a bit of an old favourite, one of my very first paintings was a blackberry and bindweed, which my mum still has. Both grow in the lane where I live and I love the intertwining nature.

Blackberries of varying stages of ripeness fill the lane near my home, mid August and there are still a few fruit in mid November. The colours are a gift to the botanical artist.

This year I've also painted another study of blackberries, this one in my sketchbook alongside bindweed...... I never tire of blackberries!

Sketchbook entry, featuring blackberries and bindweed. I used this a a demonstration video on my  Creating a Sketchbook course

On the subject of  fruit, I heard this week that another fruit project completed earlier this year has finally made it into the shops. This was a series of illustrations for Method + Standard fruit vodka; strawberries, raspberries, apples and baby cornstalk were illustrated for this project, it was another tight deadline of around two months for all drafts and completed artwork. I've worked on a lot of labelling illustrations over the years, and this was a really lovely project to work on but very different from a typical botanical painting. The spacing and text layout positions place significant restrictions on the composition. The images have to work around the text and wrap around the bottle so only just peeping on to the front. This is tricky given the shapes, and, they also have to work as paintings and be used in other contexts for marketing, so two or three drafts are usually required to get it just right. Here's an composite image from the company posted on Instagram however due to copyright restrictions I can't post images of the product but the full the outcome can be seen at Method + Standard Fruit Vodka
I'm very happy with the outcome and worked with a lovely design company on this project, you can see more of the packaging here in this article

Composite image of illustrations courtesy of Method + Standard

I've now caught up with the old blog posts so will post a blog on the sketchbook travels to Australia and Indonesia next week.

30 Paintings on Vellum in 30 Days

Haven't written a blog post for over almost a month and it's really bothering me! There's one in the offing about photographing artwork but it requires some use of the grey matter to finish it off, so here's s something about the new 30 Day Challenge in the meantime. It was initiated on the Botanical Artist's Facebook Group, and requires 30 small works to be completed during September. Over the past few years I've tried a few of these Challenges, here's a link to one that I actually completed in 2013, and wrote a daily blog for.
This time I wanted to try something different so have decided to do all 30 on vellum....it is do-able if I keep it simple!

Day 5-10 Violas on Kelmscott Vellum, size approx 8 x 6. I bought these little pots of flowers from the local DIY store and painted the whole sheet in one day because I was so behind. The palette included: Holbein Manganese Blue PB33 ( not the hue) with W & N Cobalt Violet and Quin Magenta. I love the way PB33 separates, it's really useful for high light value pale violet flowers, with both pink and blue  present. Also Violet Dioxazine. Lemon Yellow NT and Cadmium Yellow for the flower centres. The greens included Cobalt Violet, Lemon Yellow and permanent rose. 

 The Challenge started while I was away in Italy, where I visited the Venice Biennale, it's good to view a diverse range of art and the Biennale was certainly that! diversity definitely feeds the brain and upon my return I was was left playing 'catch-up' with the Challenge but definitely inspired to work.

I try to tie in this sort of challenge with other work, and these little studies are prefect for video examples for my new online Vellum Course which is underway with 5 great new students. Currently I'm also working on a large vellum painting of Roses on vellum so no doubt a few roses will probably feature here and there. Here's a little bud of Olivia Rose Austin, which was my 4th painting.

No 4. Olivia Rose Austin Bud. 5 x 3 inches on Kelmscott. Colours: Permanent Rose and Lemon Yellow n.t. for the pink with Cobalt Violet for the cool pink shades. A small amount of Permanent Carmine was also used to deepen the colour . The green mix is Cobalt Blue, Transparent Yellow and Permanent Rose. The stem Perm rose, Trans Yellow and Brown Madder

 The Blackberry studies are good as preparatory works for another painting, which is for a  competition, the final piece will be on a piece of mounted natural vellum though. This is more challenging than the Kelmscott but this piece is all good practice with the subject.

Day 1. Blackberry Study on Kelmscott, approx 7 x 5.5 inches. Love painting blackberries and working with dark colours. The black mix is Indanthrene Blue, Permanent Carmine and a very small amount of Trans Yellow. The bias of the mix is on the violet side. Where the fruit is more of a dark red colour, the quantity of Permanent  Carmine is increased. The red is Perm Carmine and Scarlet lake for the warmer red. Stems and all other parts are mixed from the same 4 colours. There is really mo need for lots of colours when a few will do and the use of the same colours created better harmony in a painting.

No. 3 This is a simple study of a single fruit and leaf but painted with Ivory Black. This is a very thick piece of vellum 6 x 2 inches. I quite like this effect and have been playing with it recently. It's all about getting the tone right before working with colour. It's also an approach that I teach as good practice in preparatory work.

Also completed on the first day was a simple single maple seed, not particularly well painted but very quickly completed.  I used the earth colours for this, it was a pretty lazy effort. In the 2013 Challenge a maple seed was the first subject and it seemed a good idea to repeat on vellum.

Maple seed on Kelmscott, 3 x 2.7  inches. I used some Manganese Blue on the shine. Thereafter Raw Umber wash, followed by building texture with Brown Madder and Van Dyke Brown, a small amount of Ultramarine Violet was added for the shadows. Lots of sweeping and drawing dry brush work here.

I've almost caught up! Maybe I'll even manage all 30. Ive plenty of vellum off - cuts so no excuses.

The Photographing artwork post will hopefully follow shortly.