New Flower Challenge and an Etsy shop launched!

I didn't quite make the finish with the leaf challenge but it doesn't mean I can't try again! I did quite a lot some of which I was pleased with and others not so!
So thought I'd have another go but this time with flowers!  Maybe one week at a time so that it's not too overwhelming. Here's number 1. Tulip

A very pink tulip! Some Permanaenent rose and Quin magenta for this one. I tend to avoid the Opera rose, which is bright but transient, so can fade. I try to work only with ASTM rating I and II paints. ASTM is the standard for paint testing

NEW SHOP!

 I've also created an Etsy shop to sell some of my smaller works and sketches produced as part of the challenges http://www.etsy.com/shop/diannesutherlandart

It seems like a good way for an arist to sell more affordable art works, such as small originals, prints and cards. The only problem is that it's very large and difficult to find things and theres a good chance of buying more than I sell!   

Final leaves for the 30/30 Leaf Challenge

Ornamental cherry from outside my daughter's house in Stoke on Trent

Picked up at a motorway service station in Glasgow on the trip home following my grandson's first visit to Scotland.

From Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire, my hometown

No blogging for weeks now and never did get round to finishing the challenge - I think I managed  just 17! too many other things to do in October but here are the last few leaves that I managed to complete....maybe next year I'll complete the 30! or maybe 30 flowers instead.

30/30 Leaf Challenge, week 2

I'm a bit behind with posting the leaf challenge images but will try to catch up. Here are the leaves from week two.

Red oak from Trentham Estate Sept 2011, graphite

Mahonia, from my garden. A gift a gardener  friend at the Cruickshank Botanic Garden, Aberdeen. Watercolour.

Wych Elm, from Aden Country Park Aberdeenshire October 2011, watercolour. Collected by my husband from outside the North East Folklore Archive

Oak  leaf from Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire, Sept 2011, Graphite.

Rhododendron leaf from Aden Country Park, Aberdeenshire,  October 2011. Collected by my husband from outside the North East Folklore Archive. Watercolour

A worse for wear Lime leaf, not sure what type. Collected from Aden Country Park, Aberdeenshire, October 2011.  

Week one - 30/30 Leaf Study Challenge.

Here's a selection of leaves painted for the first week of the 30 day leaf challenge. There's no doubt that some leaves are definitely easier to paint than others! I found it difficult to paint them in such a short amount of time too and only allowed about 1- 2 hrs each but some have taken a little longer. I'd normally spend longer than this on my work but it's good practice to set a time limit.Not sure I'll manage 30 paintings or drawings in 30 days but we'll see!

Bit of a cheat because I completed the first two, including this Oak from Duff House before October.

   

Another one completed before the start but thought I'd incliude it all the same. It's from a Herb Robert plant that arrived in the garden without invitation and gets everywhere! but it's lovely ground cover and gives this fantatic colour.  

Hydrangea leaf from my mother. The large hydrangea grows by the front door of my paerents house. Collected Sept 11

Norway maple collected from Trentham Estate, Staffordshire,  Sept 11

Copper beech collected from Duff House grounds in Banff  2010. I worked there for a couple of years until Jan 11 during which time I collected and painted many leaves.

Oxalis, I found this growing in the compost heap at the Cruickshank Botanic Garden at Aberdeen University during my studentship as a gardener in 2005.

Beech, collected from Trentham Estate, Staffordshire, September 2011

Botanical Artists, 30 Day Leaf Challenge

On October the 1st I started a challenge - to paint 30 leaves in 30 days! The task was set by botanical artist and illustrator Mindy Lighthipe via the Facebook Botanical Artists Group.  It all started when Mindy was invited to be the guest artist for the new Botanical Artists blog. Mindy wrote about her previous experience of a similar task and invited other artists to join her in a  new 30/30 challenge- so I decided to give it a go!


I have chosen to paint leaves given to me by friends and family or from places that I have some personal connection with.

Last week I visited my home town in Staffordshire and collected leaves from a number of locations including the Trentham Gardens  estate- it was the first time I had visited the beautiful gardens since I was a child.

Here's the first leaf. It's from an enormous Acer cappadocium at Trentham Gardens which the estate manager estimates dates back to the1840's.

I'll be posting my leaves at the end of each week for the remainder of the challenge.

Botanical miniatures - jewellery

I've been painting a few botanical miniatures for my daughter's online jewellery shop, pollypoppit. Great fun and so intricate, reminds me of my days painting tiny floral china patterns for Royal Albert! The paintings range from 13 x 18mm up to 30 x 40 mm. I painted them on HP watercolour paper which is then mounted behind a magnifying clear glass cabochon. The first few have now been mounted in sterling silver or natural brass surrounds.  I might try a vellum version because it picks up the detail so well. Here's a few pictures of work in progress and  a couple of finished items.

A selection of the miniature paintings

First attempt - Parrot tulip in brass 25mm round

Tulip mounted in sterling silver 18 x 25mm

Iris mounted in sterling silver 18 x25 mm

work in progress, meconopsis  30 x 40mm in sterling silver

Fritillaria meleagris ( Snakeshead lily) in natural brass surround 18 x 25mm

Primula vulgaris on kelmscott Vellum, SBA exhibition 2012

I've been working on this painting of Primula vulgaris on vellum for what seems like weeks ....it's finally  finished..... well almost!I hope to exhibit it at the SBA show, when I'll be applying for full membership in Feb 2012. Here's a few detail photos and the preparatory graphite work. I should have taken more photos of the process but forgot, sorry.

Finished! Primula vulgaris on Kelmscott vellum

Original graphite....spot the difference. I added an extra flower in the gap on the right....works better! also the roots. Poor plant was pulled from its pot and suspended in a retort stand for this. Love roots!

The slightly labourious tonal graphite is time well spent when it somes to painting. the continuous tone technique is not so different from thae dry brush methof used when painting on vellum

I'm goint to use these two for my business cards!

Love that little bit of pink...It's little things like that that make the painting...in my opinion

The Meconopsis

Several years ago Dr Evelyn Stevens, co-founder of the Meconopsis Group, gifted me some seeds for a cross pollination experiment. I raised a fairly large number of Meconopsis plants but far too many for my small garden, so passed on a number to the Cruickshank Botanic Garden at the University of Aberdeen, keeping just a small number at home. I've been trying to get around to painting them for the past 3 years - a few weeks ago I finally made a start, although in fairness it had taken 3 years prior to this to produce any flowers and some still refuse to flower! Anyway so much time has passed that one of the plants has recently been reclassified! (see description below)
Here is just one of the preparatory watercolours towards the series of Meconopsis paintings. They're quite tricky because the colour of the petals changes so quickly with age. The final pieces will probably be painted on vellum.....but that will have to wait until next year.

Meconopsis baileyi
Discovered in 1913 by Col. F.M. Bailey in Rong Chu, SE Tibet, the Tibetan blue poppy was named Meconopsis baileyi in 1915 from a herbarium specimen. Ten years after Col Bailey's discovery, Frank Kingdon Ward collected substantial samples of herbarium material and seeds from the same area. From this seed M. baileyi, or Bailey's blue poppy, was introduced into western gardens.
 
However,  it was discovered that a similar plant had been previously been discovered, in 1886, by Pere Delavay in NW Yunnan. This plant was described and named, M. Betonicifolia in 1889. It was not introduced into cultivation. When George Taylor published his monograph of the genus in 1934, he maintained that the two taxa, were conspecific, therefore the name M. betonicifolia had priority having been published at the earlier date, thus, M. baileyi became a synonym.

In June 2009, Dr Chris Grey-Wilson, of Kew,  published a paper in The Alpine Gardener which identified more than 8 distinct features that justify separation of the two taxa, as a result the original two species were reinstated. M. betonicifolia endemic to NW Yunnan and M. baileyi endemic to SE Tibet. You can read more about the history and classification on the Meconopsis Group website.

More leaves exhibited in Scotland, McEwan Gallery

Painting has resumed again after a few glitches. The problem at this time of year is that there are just too many plants to choose from and not enough time to paint them. It's hard to decide what to do first and the end result always seems to be that I attempt too many pieces and flit from one thing to another, finishing only one or two. Every year I decide to be more organised..... 

Now with all this choice and such a limited season it seems ridiculous to be painting dead leaves but that's what I've been doing. This behaviour was inspired by my recent purchase of the exhibition catalogue from Rory McEwen's 1988 retrospective 'Rory McEwen 1932-1982, The Botanical Paintings' - it has 24 colour plates of his works including some of his incredible leaves, there are still a few copies around through book dealers for those willing to search for it. This mahonia leaf was my latest challenge and caused me to abandon the poor Meconopsis that I've been promising to paint for 3 years! Below are some of the other dead leaves completed over the past year..... I'll finish the meconopsis next week.I do love leaves!

Mahonia on vellum 6 x 4

Horse chestnut on vellum 10 x 12

Maple on vellum 8 x 10

Beech on vellum 6 x 4 ( not exhibited at the McEwan) a gift for my lovely boss when I left the Council's education dept after 4 years

Cherry on vellum 6 x 4

Copper beech with skeleton 4 x 7

All of the leaves are on vellum, most of these these were exhibited and sold at the McEwan Gallery, Ballater. I've been exhibiting there since I moved to Scotland around  1989! It's a lovely gallery in a beautiful surrounding

SBA 2011 Annual Exhibition and Graduation....oops I missed it!.

Returned home yesterday after visiting the 2011 SBA exhibition  at Westminster Halls on Saturday 16th April. After sharing the train with the Manchester United  and City supporters I was pretty relieved to finally arrive at Westminster albeit quite late in the day.  There's so much to take in at the exhibition and I should have been there for longer to do the show justice. As always the standard was high with lots of amazing work which included a central display dedicated to illustrations of various plants from all corners of the globe titled 'The World of Plants' - A few of my favourites this year include:  Jacky Jousson - for me he's one of the best botanical painters and the way he handles the light is truly amazing! Fiona Strickland's use of colour is fabulous, Julia Trickey's paintings are technically perfect and very beautiful, Billy Showell's  design based botanicals always bring something that's very refreshing to the genre. I also saw Sigrid Frensen 's work for the first time and it really is lovely - particularly the Pelargonium sidiodes.
I had 4 works on display, three of which were assignments from the SBA course. Next year I hope to paint something specifically for the exhibition....but what?

My Ceritficate for the SBA Diploma

It was also the graduation for course 6 of the SBA Distance Learning Diploma Course on the 15th at the Art Workers Guild in Bloomsbury. Unfortunately this didn't go to plan and I missed it! After a hectic week visiting family in Staffordshire I headed to London but for some reason convinced myself that the graduation was later than the time printed on the invite! This wouldn't have mattered too much but I also managed to miss the earlier train, then got lost! Logistics are not a strong point! I finally arrived a bit red faced and almost 90 mins late! just enough time to have a quick chat with Margaret Stevens and collected my diploma before heading back feeling rather stupid.....never mind some things just aren't meant to be!