New Year, Old Painting: Cupani Project

This week I finally finished off a commission which began last year. It's a painting of the sweet pea 'Cupani' on dark vellum, which will be making its way to its owner in Seattle this coming week.  It's been a long time in the making, as many paintings are - from buying the seeds and growing the plants in the garden, initial studies and sketches to the final painting all takes time.

Finished painting of Cupani Lathyus odoratus on dark veiny vellum 
 

This project began about one year ago, I think about the same time we first heard of Covid 19! I purchased the heirloom seeds of Lathyrus odoatus 'Cupani' from Chilterns Seeds in early February. Referred to as the 'original' sweet pea, it's believed to have first arrived in England in 1699, when Sicilian monk Father Francesco Cupani sent seeds from his home in Sicily to schoolmaster and botanist Dr Robert Uvedale. Father Cupani was a man ahead of his time and you can read more about  his work in this Acta Botanica Gallica Journal and also about other plants that bear his name and his publication on native flora of Sicily on Professor Hedghog's Journal, which is well worth following. Reading about these plants makes me want to visit Sicily to see the native flora.....maybe next year. 

Botanist Father Cupani Img. Wikimedia Commons 

Compared to modern day cultivars, this is a much more conservative looking flower, the hairy slender stems usually bear just two flowers, which are relatively small, however the colours are stunning with a rich red maroon, and blue/ violet wings with a paler keel inside, most outstanding is the perfume of the flower. Dr Uvedale succeeded in growing the flower which soon became popular in the 1700's, being given the name 'Cupani' and marketed commercially by around 1730. Our modern day cultivars descend from Cupani, so we have much to be thankful for. 

It's an easy enough plant to grow, and I started it off in seed trays in early February with a late second batch in early March (sow anytime Sept - March), they germinate quickly, within a few weeks, and the tips need to be pinched out to encourage bushy growth. Planting two batches meant I would have a longer flowering period to work with. Despite the Covid lockdown the weather from March and all summer was incredible and the Garden flourished, Cupani likes full sun so this was good. Much to my relief the first Cupani flowers appeared July 23rd, it didn't take long before they were scrambling over fences and up canes. It's best to remove most seedpods to promote longer flowering but I kept a few for the illustration purposes.

First flowers appeared July 23rd 

Within a couple of weeks Cupani is scrambling all over the garden 

I set to work on a study page once a few flowering stems were established, it's a lovely plant to paint, with such vibrant colour. I always complete a study page - this allows me to understand the plant...how it fits together and grows. For me this study page is a problem solving exercise in advance of the final painting and it's always good to have plenty of plant material to work with, that way I dissect and deconstruct to achieve the best understanding. Measuring and making notes as well as working out all the colour mixes is all part of the process. 

Studies, revealed that some stems have three flowers but most only have two, Later on I decided to stick with what is typical in the final painting. 

The finished study page shows different aspects of the plant, an enlarged dissection in graphite, notes about the plant, dates and colour mixes. This process makes composing and completing the final piece much easier. 

For the final composition, I wanted to keep a similar look to the study page but with a more square format, so made some drawings based on this arrangement but kept some aspects a little more spontaneous. 

The next task was to move on to the painting; the client wanted the piece on vellum and initially I though manuscript might be the best option because it has some delicate veining and is a clean and fairly white substrate, the flower has strong colour so I though perhaps the darker vellum might not work so well, however, despite starting on manuscript, curiosity go the better of me and I made a small flower stud on dark vellum, some adjustment was needed with the colour mixes and I made use of some body colour by using gouache to increase vibrance, to my surprise it worked well. 

On the light manuscript the colours are more vibrant and venation is still visible

 

The developing composition on manuscript before I had a change of heart 

Comparing surfaces, left study page, centre manuscript and right dark veiny vellum

A small study on a  scrap of dark vellum, after discussion with the client we decided this was the best option 

 After discussions with the client we decided that the dark vellum was the way to go, I'd had this beautiful piece of vellum from William Cowleys for some time, the strong veins complement the climbing stems so well and the warm colour gives a lovely vintage feel. Although I wouldn't finish this painting until long after flowering had finished, I had enough preparatory material and photographs to complete it at a later date. Sometimes it's good to change your mind. 

'Cupani' has been a wonderful project and I'll definitely be growing it again this year! Apparently the sweet pea is symbolic of goodbyes as well as for pleasure, I'm sure we'll all be glad to say goodbye to this current situation and can maybe get out into the wider world again in the not too distant future to do more plant hunting, but for now though it's time to begin the next 2021 project.

 

Painting leaves: Colour Mixing

Nothing spoils a botanical painting so much as poorly painted or inaccurate leaves. If we think nobody will notice our errors, we're probably mistaken. It doesn't matter how well we painted the rest of the piece - it's only ever as good as the weakest part. But leaves can be tricky! for me the likelihood of success increases if preparatory studies are completed. I try to work out colours and approach before I even think about starting the painting. The idea for this blog post occurred to me as I gathered my thoughts for a class taught last week for Field Breaks at The Art Room in Barlow, and, as always, it was interesting to hear what problems students encounter when painting leaves. One of the most common cited is colour mixing, so this is my focus here - although I may cover others leaf painting problems in a future posts.

Ivy leaf painted as preparatory work for the class. I light the subject using a lamp positioned upper left, to enhance the light and shade. The first study is on paper and used  to work out colours and approach, before moving on to vellum. I laid 3 green washes with a size 6 brush, over an initial cobalt blue wash, which was painted with a size 10 brush. I  then worked with dry brush, using size 1 spotters and miniatures to deepen colour before picking out detail with a fine pointed David Jackson brush. I also use a Pro Arte synthetic flat brush for tidying and painting shadow under the veins

Moving on to vellum: I started by lightly painting in the veins with Winsor lemon. Then painted a rough wash of cobalt blue with a size 10 brush, this is the underlying colour and makes a good shine on a dark leaf. I left virtually no white, because the blue will be much less obvious once the dark green in on top, however, the blue highlights must be preserved to give the effect of shine. It really doesn't look great at this stage but this is just a foundation,  the wash is graded to give some indication of form. I paint around the veins with the cobalt and leave the outer edge of the leaf very soft, to enhance the form as the leaf bends away from view.  From there on, the approach differs from paper, and the whole leaf is painted using dry brush techniques. I use a mix of three colours for all parts, Indanthrene blue, Transparent Yellow and Permanent Carmine. I came up with a system on working with the light value of the blue as the predominant factor when deciding on the colour mix....basically a dark green leaf needs a dark blue colour....it's that simple! (see the chart below).  Always work with transparent colours in the layers on dark leaves. For light coloured leaves, use a high light value blues instead, such as Cerulean or Manganese blue (transparency is slightly less important in high light value colours). For the mid green leaves  for something like a Cobalt blue or Winsor blue. The browns are mixed with the same three paints, simply increase the ratio of the red and yellow to make brown.

The finished leaf on goatskin Kelmscott. Colours are gradually deepened so as not to be heavy on the vellum. Soft strokes with barely any paint at all are used to build form and colour and highlights are maintained. I use a technique, which I refer to as 'polishing' to smooth the surface and you will see that I preserved the blue on the highlights by carefully blending around the highlights.

I'm not going to list lots of colour mixes here because that not very helpful when you consider how many variables there are in the ratios. My approach is aimed at understanding the basics of colour mixing, so that you can easily work out yourself what to use. Here's my method, it's not intended to be a hard and fast rule but more of a method for guidance..... There are, of course, lots of other ways.

An approach to colour mixing:  I mix all greens from primary colours, blue, yellow and usually a small amount of red. A few years ago I developed a simple system based on the light value of the blue as the predominant factor when deciding on the green mix.  

 Below is a chart for greens and browns that I made using 3 primaries of varying light values. The blue is the colour to choose first for a green mix because it's the dominant colour. The light value and saturation of that blue is all important. If you start painting a very light green leaf with a darker value blue, such as French Ultramarine,  you may well run into problems with the leaf becoming too dark. Any single colour reaches saturation after around 4 washes, so it will become fully saturated quite quickly, adding subsequent layers of the same mix just makes paint thicker but not darker. So, if you bear in mind the light value of the blue first, you can avoid this problem. It sounds obvious but it's a surprisingly common problem, especially with beginners. Then choose the yellow and finally most greens mixes have a small amount of red, so choose this colour last. The same rule of light value applies with all three colours When you mix in so much red that it turns brown the red becomes the dominant colour instead of the blue.

 

My Rule of Thumb Light Value Chart. If you base your green mixes on the light value (i.e. tonal value) of the leaf colour that you want to achieve by choosing the blue first, you can't go too far wrong. So for a light coloured leaf choose a light blue such as cerulean (top row of chart) and for a mid light value, such as cobalt blue (middle row). The ivy leaf was a dark green, hence the choice of the darker more saturated blue, Indanthrene (bottom row). You can see how easy it is to put the leaf on the chart to find a close match.  I mix 1:1 ratio of blue and yellow first, then 2:1 and 1:2 with the blue and the yellow, thereafter I start to add a small amount of red and play with the ratio of the 3 colours.  The  red generally mar a more natural green.

My old paintbox

I use a primary palette of single pigments paints with 4 yellows, 6 blues and 5 reds. This palette allows me to mix any colour that I might need and makes it more manageable to understand colour mixing.
If you don't understand the light values or saturation of your paints, try this exercise below, it's one Ruskin used to ask students complete. Fill the brush with each of the blues and paint down the page observing how dark each colour is as it progresses down the page, you will see the saturation of the darker colours allow you to keep going much longer, whereas the light value of cerulean has already disappeared. You can easily see the tonal difference between the colours.

Tonal values of the blue paints, left to right: Cerulean, Cobalt, Winsor blue green shade, French Ultramarine and Indanthrene. I've also turned the image to black and white to highlight the tonal values difference.

For the ivy, the darkest blue in the palette is indanthrene blue and this is the obvious choice, I then chose, transparent yellow, its a rich yellow but most important is the transparncy, especially when painting dark colours. Opaque yellows are not good in dark greens as the block the light and deaden the green, thereafter, permanent carmine was an obvious choice because of its richness.

For the green mix the blue and the yellow at a 1:1 ratio and then add a small amount or the red, I can bias the mix to a warmer (more yellow biased green) or to a cooler ( more blue biased green) very easily by shifting left or right with the mix out of the puddle shown below. Adding more red reduces the brightness of the green until too much is added and it shifts towards grey/ brown.

The exact same colours in a different ratio make brown. Start with 1:1 of  the red and yellow and add a small amount of blue to make browns. A whole range of lovely browns can be made by playing with the ratio of colours.

Finally using the red and blue at 1:1 this time and adding a small amount of yellow makes neutral tint or as near as black as is possible. As before some lovely variations are possible by varying the ratio of the colours to make warmer or cooler variations.

As you can see from this demonstration above, it's possible to achieve pretty much everything using these 3 colours, including all the various green tones as well as the brown parts without any need for additional shade colours. I used a different underlying blue for the highlights and a cooler yellow for the veins. But this will vary from leaf to leaf.  It's also incredibly important to maintain highlights and this is easier if you use directional lighting on your subject, I often exaggerate the lighting to make the painting more interesting.....but that' a subject for another post.

Finally, I think we all struggle with leaves and if you know that they are a weak point for you, the best approach is to work extra hard at improving them. If you plan to enter a painting for a juried exhibition, bear in mind that judges are drawn to leaves like radar!...... they will notice poorly executed leaves or those treated as an afterthought.

Quick Leaf Check list

• Observe first - look for underlying colours and key features, such as widest point, tip, base and leaf margin.

• Make an accurate drawing observing key features and taking measurements 

• Light the subject using directional light from a lamp or window. A lamp is often better for beginners because its consistent.

• Work out the palette, is it a light medium or dark leaf? If it's a green leaf, whats the most appropriate blue to start with, test the combinations.

•  Work out the approach and techniques, underlying colour, graded or blended washes and dry brush.   

A Few Things to Avoid!

• 'Tram line' veins - check the width of your veins against the actual subject, if too wide use a synthetic short brush to 'push' them in
• Go easy with the eraser! I hear a lot of people blaming the paper for ragged edges and yes there are a few issues with some papers but nothing wrecks the surface like an eraser.
• Stylised appearance– lack of detail or inaccurate venation pattern. Close observation required!
• Over-painted edges, an absolute no no! be careful not to let washes run over the edge. if this happens its usually because you use too much water. Use a magnifier to help avoid this.
• Poor lighting - results in flat lifeless leaves, interesting paintings always have good lighting. So light from upper front left or right and play with the light until you get it right.
• Poor tonal values - usually caused by 1: poor lighting 2: bad colour with lack of sufficient variation in tonal values, and/or painting multiple layers of the same colour  3. Painting over the highlights. Light well, start with a slightly larger highlight than needed and check the range of tones and saturation of colour in the subject.
• Compensatory washes over the top, using colours such as green gold. Unless used carefully and selectively, these can often look like they've been used to compensate for poorly painted leave and can make all of your leaves look the same.

One the second day at Barlow, we painted brown leaves, will discuss browns and reds in more depth later.

Work on Leaves, paint lots of them, paint different types  – paint them over and over don't be in a rush to finish your next piece….  have patience…. It doesn't matter if you didn't post on social media for a while, concentrate on the job in hand and enjoy the process.

A Visit to the William Cowley Works: Trying out Transparent Vellum

Last Friday I visited the William Cowley vellum and parchment works, in Newport Pagnall. I've been buying vellum from Cowleys for well over 10 years, so it was great to finally see how they make the calf skin vellum and to find out about some different types of vellum and parchment. I felt very honoured to be allowed in as they don't generally allow the public into their workshop. I left having purchased two beautiful skins, one of which was transparent vellum and the other a beautifully veined skin. I also  selected lots of beautiful small cut pieces for workshops later this year. Only time will tell if I can produce decent work on the transparent vellum but I was reasonably pleased with my first attempt, an Emperor moth..... and enjoyed the challenge.
 

Trying out transparent vellum for the first time by painting a female Emperor Moth, Saturnia pavonia , a British resident moth and sole member of the Saturniidae Family in the UK.  This vellum really is transparent but here it's laid on top of white paper yet still maintains a beautiful soft finish which differs from other vellum. The image appears to float on top of the surface giving a beautiful effect.

Here you can see just how transparent this vellum really is! It takes a long time to produce such a piece of vellum with careful shaving of the skin until it's very thin, yet retains the subtle matkings. Cowley's only sell this in whole skins and it costs a little more than other types of vellum. I just had to take a skin to try and think it will be lovely for delicate white or lemon flowers, feathers and leaf skeletons etc. It can reversed for viewing and open mounted. I was told that calligraphers are able to write backwards on it for this purpose!

The finished emperor moth, give or take a few tweaks. I may add a small piece of heather beneath the moth, which is one of its food plants. It's not particularly difficult to work on this vellum but it does require a very dry brush approach because the skin is thin, too much moisture would be likely to cause cockling. I used extremely fine stipple using a size 0 and 1 miniature brush on top of a light wash. I always avoid any outlining in order to maintain the soft edges. A small amount of titianium white watercolour was mixed into the light colours to accentuate the lights and to create the effect of the scales on the wings.

Detail showing stipple which suits the effect of scales of the wing but this can also be smoothed with additional work if a softer finish is required. I worked using a x2.5 magnification to ensure the 'dots' were fine.

The second skin that I purchased is a darker veined vellum, this came from Paul's favourites and is really stunning. More about the plans for that piece in a future blog post though.

A bit about Cowleys
There used to be 52 vellum and parchment makers in the UK but now only Cowley's remains. The family business has been established since the 1870's, started by William Cowley and continuing for 4 generations. Old photographs of the family can still be seen in the office today.
Cowley's recently they made the news headlines when the tradition of using parchment for documenting Acts of Parliament came under threat of being replaced by archival paper. However vellum won the day and the tradition continues. There can be no doubt that vellum will out live paper and this was evident when I viewed in the beautiful paintings on show at the Fitzwilliam Museum recently,see my previous post on the Fitzwilliam.
Manager Paul went to great lengths to make me very welcome, making lots of cups of tea and providing Black Jack and Fruit Salad sweets! He had taken out a large number of skins for me to view in advance and the store room was full of the rolled skins lined up on the shelves with scraps covering the floor. But he proceeded to bring down more and more skins until we got to the transparent vellum! The cut vellum was carefully stacked in different sizes and types. I haven't posted many of my photographs as Cowley's are quite protective of their business but there are lots on their website.
 

Choosing a skin, Paul explained about what we can learn about the life or death of the animal from its skin, by looking at markings and other clues. He can tell you if an animal died in the field, which side it fell on, the sex and the time of year it died. The honey vellum are summer skins and basically have a bit of a sun tan, whereas the winter skins are more marked or bruised often with dark hair follicles visible.

  Before I go any further I think it's important to stress that no animals are killed specifically for vellum production, these animal skins would otherwise go to landfill so this makes good use of resources and continues the tradition, whilst providing artists and calligraphers with a wonderfully robust and beautiful surface suitable for paintings and illustrations. Vellum and  parchment can last for over 500 years and in terms of provenance or authenticity ....well it has its own DNA and of course the unique markings, which make it impossible to copy.

Before I left I was allowed to try out the process of preparing the vellum, and tried my hand at shaving the skin smooth. This is a highly skilled craft and each skin is completely unique, the amount that the skin is shaved determines the final appearance, many look like works of art in their own right. 

Preparing the vellum by shaving the surface whilst secured in a stretcher....it would take me a very long time to prepare a skin!

The more I paint on vellum, the more tempted I am to completely abandon paper, no other surface matches it and given all of the problems with Fabriano papers it's becoming even more appealing. 

When I left I signed the stretched skin at the entrance, which has been signed by other artists, calligraphers and film crews.

With a head bursting with ideas, I carried on my journey after leaving Cowley's and visited the wonderful Chelsea Flower show on the Saturday, so the vellum trial had to wait until I returned home on the Sunday. Ironically on the way home I received an email saying that my large Fritillaria imperialis ' Rubra' painting on Cowley's Kelmscott vellum had been accepted into the ASBA 19th Annual International Exhibition and will be shown at the New York Design Centre in November this year....so a good weekend all round!

Fritillaria imperialis 'Rubra' on Kelmscott vellum

Small works, Plants and Insects

It's been a busy few weeks, which included my first ever SBA selection day last month. While I was there inspecting almost 1000 paintings, I was intrigued by the small number of miniatures that had been entered and it crossed my mind that I could try entering a few of my butterfly paintings in the Royal Society of Miniature Painters annual open exhibition in October. I would like to broaden my horizons slightly by entering different exhibitions and this is something perhaps to focus on over the next year or so. Butterflies seem like a good option and can be combined with botanical subjects, they're also one of my favourite subjects and their size means that they should fit the entry criteria for the Miniature Society, which states that main subject should be no more than 2 inches in size. For more information take a look at the Society website http://www.royal-miniature-society.org.

Butterflies are a great subjects! here's a silent edited clip from one of my course videos, sorry it's a bit lengthy but it gives an idea of the process involved in working on small subjects on vellum.

Further inspiration to paint insects came after a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum last weekend. They currently have an exhibition titled, 'Crawling with Life', it's a relatively small exhibition of Botanical subjects and insects by some of the finest botanical artists, including, George Dionysius Ehret, Maria Sibylla Merian and the Dietszch family amongst others. The exhibition runs until the 8th May and is well worth a look.

Poster from the Fitzwilliam exhibition, Crawling with Life, plus other goodies from the shop

Most of the works on display are on vellum, many have suffered considerable buckling over the years, which is not surprising given the age of some of the pieces but the actual paintwork is immaculate, vibrant and beautifully preserved, much more so than works on paper which seem to suffer more from fading, yellowing or foxing. I was particularly intrigued by the botanical works on vellum with black backgrounds, by the Dietzsch family. Their works span much of the 18th century yet despite their age, these paintings are incredibly vibrant and suffer no buckling whatsoever. The two Dietzsch sisters Barbara Regina, Margaretha Barbara and brother Johann Cristoph all produced works in this style, as shown in the exhibition poster, in fact it's difficult to tell them apart at times. 

I believe that the black backgrounds are painted with a type of gouache which is more opaque compared to watercolour and this is due to the larger pigment particle size which are suspended with a binding agent, usually gum Arabic, which gives good coverage, also a far higher pigment to water ratio makes for better coverage.  However I was perplexed about applying dark opaque paint to the vellum without creating a dreadful mess. 

An example of work with a painted black background by Margaretha Barbara Dietzsch, Apfelbten, 1795 copyright Wikimedia Commons

With all of this in mind I was inspired by both miniatures and black backgrounds on vellum and attempted to try both by painting a small tortoiseshell butterfly on vellum ( below) the work is about 2.5 inches square. I didn't have a great deal of success or time but haven't finished it because I'm suffering from a type of repetitive strain injury with my hand - so it needs to be rested for a few days - but I will persevere! Overall it's a bit untidy but I think i can refine it. I was very surprised though at how easy it was to lay down the black, albeit on a very small area. The best approach I think is to do it swiftly and not be tempted to go back over it. I also think it's better to paint the subject first and add the black last, simply because it proved quite easy to pick up black on the brush when working at the edge of a leaf. 

My first miniature, a work in progress! Small tortoiseshell butterfly on vellum with black background

I'll finish it off next week and maybe try one more on black, I'm not sure that I'll actually use the black background for the miniature society entries because I prefer the look of the vellum skin and it seems a shame to cover it but it's interesting to play with and of course to try new things. 

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!

Thinking About Leaves, more on Vellum

This week I've been continuing with the 30 day challenge and came back to the old problem with painting leaves....nothing lets a botanical painting down more than poorly painted foliage and the worst case scenario is badly painted leaf on vellum! Don't think no one will notice if your leaves aren't up to scratch....they will! It's always worth brushing up on leaves so this week I've been preparing new tasks for some of my students and leaves are always firmly on the agenda for me too. ...they need constant practice.

Here's a video of a leaf I painted on vellum this morning, sped up x16 so that gives you an idea of the actual time frame.

Almost finished, the autumn leaf on vellum

I love to paint leaves and autumn is the most exciting time with a variety of rich colours. Tidy edges are vital, as are clean highlights which should not lifted, overworking is an absolute no-no! it's always obvious if you do any of these, so there is no hiding place with leaves. Best advice is to keep it clean.... if it's not.... well forget it and start over until its right!

Rough measurements of a leaf in perspective

I believe that it really is all about observation of the the light and shade, so often I see leaves painted in a 'stylised' fashion, with 'tramline veins' that don't mirror the actual venation of the leaf. My recommendation is always to 'really look' at leaf and forget what you think know and just 'see' what's really there. Yes always take basic measurements of height, width and widest point etc. get the facts first but then look at how the light hits the subject. Start with a leaf portrait first and then move on to leaves perspective. Here are some of my leaf portraits from over the years.

Cherry leaf on vellum from around 2007. The thing I really love about vellum is the way its possible to 'polish' the surface and creates a shine. Work on vellum should never have thickened paint at the edges and should take full advantage of the translucency that can be achieved on this surface but you can also create that lovely texture using the different dry brush techniques

Decaying lime leaf on vellum, again vellum is great for detail and translucency, A sharp pointed brush is required, such as W & N series 7 miniature, size 4 and 1

Hydrangea on Fabriano artistico..... the technique is much the same as for vellum, lots of dry brush work over the wash.

Herb Robert on Fabriano artistico, love the rich autumn colours. Transparent colours are a must. I like Transparent Yellow and Nickel Azo Yellow in leaf mixes is a favourite. Steer clear of opaque yellows and try to have no more than 3 single pigment colours if you want to keep it fresh looking.

One of my early leaves on vellum. Horse Chestnut on Kelmscott, maybe 2008

Cherry with a leaf minor cast, 2010

Lime leaf on vellum, 2010

Mahonia on vellum, with some lovely dacay!

Red Maple on vellum

Red Maple on paper

Shiny dark greens with the Camellia on paper. Cerulean or Manganese blue makes a good 'shine' colour on those dark green leaves

Building up the layers on vellum.....doesn't always look so neat in the early stages. I use a 5 stage process which I've developed and I believe it works.

.........you can get a great shine in the end!

This one on natural vellum is perfect for decaying leaves but a little less suitable for flowers

My process is pretty much the same on paper but less washes are possible on vellum, this is  a rhododendron leaf on paper.Stippling dry brush over a wash similar to vellum

Leaf portraits are fun to do and you can learn much from them! They always sell well too, so why not start a leaf library.