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.

Day 11 of the 30 Day Challenge, Blackberries

I think it's fair to say that where I live isn't the most picturesque or inspiring of of places. Stoke on Trent or the 'Potteries' is a strange place with no heart to the City, it sprawls across 5 run down towns, littered with remnants of its former industrial heritage and demolition sites. Unfortunately it's yet another City undergoing haphazard 'regeneration', dictated by an ill-informed Council.
But even in a place like this it's surprising what you can sometimes find on the doorstep. I live on the outskirts of one of the 5 towns, Longton. It's just a few miles from where I was born, and I have to say that it's the most depressing of places and not really somewhere that you would venture out for a stroll.... but recently I've noticed ( while sitting in the usual traffic jams) that if you look around there are all sorts of bits and pieces of green space in this town, like stepping-stones for wildlife.  Yesterday I ventured along a path that I'd spotted while stuck at yet another set of temporary traffic lights! it runs parallel with the main A50 road and  towards the incinerator and the Britannia football stadium....sounds lovely doesn't it!  But I found some great stuff there and the Council obviously did a good job with the planting in years gone by, with fruit trees, bushes and berries a plenty!
So I now have a haul of items sufficient to keep me going for at least another 10 days of the challenge! And the lesson here is.....stop putting off painting by using the excuse that there's nothing to paint....it's not true! there's always something to paint, you just haven't looked!
Here's my first effort from yesterdays find. The good old blackberry. 

Finished piece, watercolour and graphite

 It started as a simple single fruit study ( below ) but felt like I hadn't done enough, so started adding more berries and some leaves in graphite. I tend to think this isn't a good approach and usually like to have a clear idea of the outcome at the outset but I'm bending my own rules for this Challenge because it's good to bend your own rules.  Think I prefer it as it was in the simpler form, although  the curl of tissue where it was pulled from the stem is quite nice..... and inflicted considerable pain!

Single study first.

Close up, a bit blurred because this is much larger than actual size but I added it so you can see the colours in more detail.

Colours: Red berry: Transparent  Yellow and small amount of Cobalt Blue Deep for the green
Quinacridone Red wash graded into the greener berries,  and then as a wash the the remaining berries, remembering to leave all highlights clear. towards the left of the front berry I added Permanent Alizarin Crimson, where the berries are a cooler colour. I applied two washes and then used dry brush to model the form adding a small amount of Indanth Blue to the red for the shade red. I used cobalt deep and cobalt violet on the reflected light areas.
Blackberry: Indanth, blue and Permanet Alizarin Crimson with a tiny amount of cad yellow, I used different washes of the Indanth and Alizarin on top of the first wash tho show the blue or red bias in the berries. I used the same Cobalt Blue Deep and Cobalt Violet for the light as in the red berries.
Stalk and dried parts: French Ultra and trans yellow for the green. I added raw umber for the browns and hairs with some Permanent Rose and Indanth Blue added to make the darker brown. I used sepia for the darkest touches on the unpollinated dead flower anthers and filaments.