Collections Series, no. 2. Remnants from the 30 Day Challenge

This is my second work as part of the Collections series. I didn't want too many items on the page but feel this is a bit sparse. The subjects are left- overs from those collected for the 30 day challenge. All came from Longton Park in Staffodshire.

Collections Series no. 2. Remnants,  Size 16 x 25 cm

  I didn't spend an awful lot of time planning this piece and simply arranged the subjects on a sheet of white paper to work from - moving them around a little until they looked roughly balanced. My only reference point was to make the objects at the outer edges broadly in line, somehow the beech seed ended up in the wrong place, being lower down than the lichen!  I notice now that I naturally alternate the direction of the subjects in rows but didn't give this any particular thought at the time. Putting an image on screen is very useful because I can clearly see where the subjects might have been better placed. I often look at composition ideas on screen - it helps me to spot errors.  However these works are not intended to take very long, not much more than a half day per to a day per work -  so no such planning or over planning because this is just an add on activity intended to improve my painting by regular working in set time limits.  Hopefully I'll get the hang of arranging these collections as I progress.

Detail of lichen encrusted twig

Detail of lichen and moss

 I chose to add a shadow beneath each item, which is not something that I'd normally do. The general consensus seems to be that there's no place for shadows in botanical art,  yet if you attend the annual SBA or other botanical shows you will usually find a number of paintings with shadows.  Personally I don't see the problem with having a shadow in a ' nature' based painting like this, it's not a botanical illustration and doesn't interfere with the subject in any way. Shadow is only a problem if you were to add one to a work that is intended to be a more traditional style botanical illustration - i.e. for plant identification purposes, I think too much fuss is made about the inclusion of shadows....but I'm undecided on whether to use shadow for next weeks painting.

The acorns

Empty conker