Summertime, and the living is easy

Well, it ought to be. But alas this month life hit me with something of an enormous great thud. Without going into tedious detail, it was all rather awful for a little while. But, luckily the big light at the end of the tunnel looms ever larger, (and Marks and Spencer cakes help an awful lot too). 

So, onto this month's missive and the sketchbook of choice this time around belongs to Frances. Now, I don't know Frances that well but I know she is rather partial to a Celtic knot design or too. Having seen a couple of lovely designs in her sketchbook, I decided I couldn't quite match the intricate Celtic knottery and decided to go with a pageful of flowers instead. Also, with all the rather hellish nonsense going on, I knew I wouldn't be able to spend as much time as I would have liked on this one.  

A seasonal display.

So, not wanting to disappoint, I had a good trawl through the archives and came upon a page of mixed summer flowers that I had completed a little while ago. I loved working on this page and knew with all the colours and shapes Frances might quite like these in her book. Rather than just a simple cut and paste job, I decided to work them up a bit with the addition of some dry brush work, to bring out the details a bit more. This also gave me the chance to see how the addition of Ox-gall liquid to the water would affect the paint. It worked a treat, and really helped with the flow of the paint, particularly when painting the 'Summertime' lettering. Highly recommended and great thanks to renowned artist Fiona Strickland for the tip.

The 'touching up' palette.
With the addition of some Winsor and Newton Ox-gall to the painting water.

As always, I added some of my typography flourishes, (well, I can't help myself on that) just to give it all that final personal touch. Flourishy and fluttery, I hope you like it Frances.

A gorgeous pink for the May / June entry

A size 0 brush, a steady hand and some Ox-gall work a treat.

The Ox-gall really assisted in getting the sweeping arches smoothly round.

Here's a quick edit. Recently I wrote a piece about our exchange for the Society of Floral Painters.

 

June the month of the cherries

A nice subject, when you can get enough of them, cherries to draw ! I started drawing them in 2003 as a small still life, then I continued painting this colourful and nice fruit trying to respect the usual rules of the botanical art. 

Cherries are cultivated plants, but I discovered that in Mugello, part of Tuscan region, they grow in wild, big trees as an element of the local flora, expecially in the hight hills with a cool climate. At the end of June there are no cherries anymore, because of the birds, that have all the fruits eaten.

Where are the cherries I drew gone ?

The first drawing I did is in a forgotten sketchbook

 

The second is in Amsterdam 

The third (wild plant) is still framed and it was in Berlin for an exibition last year

 

The fourth (wild plant) I gave as a present to a friend

The last is in Jarnie's sketchbook

Moving on...

These are my last few weeks in London; after a life's worth of traffic pollution and the screaming sounds of sirens in the streets at all hours I'm giving my lungs, and ears, a rest and moving to Trowbridge in Wiltshire.
The park that has been a delight to me since living nearby all my life will be somewhere I only visit occasionally when Dyson and I come to London to visit our respective friends. Instead I will be living four minutes walk from the Kennet and Avon canal so looking forward to towpath walks and new bounty to discover and draw in the hedges and edges.

For what may be the last entry in the sketchbook from here I chose to put in something from my garden ... a fern crosier. I love watching the magic unfurling, tightly packed leaves filling out and surprising me with their fullness. The first attempt was in colour pencil (Polychromos) and I only managed about four layers before the paper wouldn't take any more...and neither could I !! it was frustrating.

Plan B... stick a new one in on different paper over the top.

On the next spread I took the book into the park and tried my best with the parakeets(something else I'm going to miss in Wiltshire). I did some rough sketches and tried painting on site but have decided that 'in the field' isn't for me and Dyson, maybe just me, certainly not Dyson! Used the colour pencils over the layer of watercolour for a little detail, jotted down some notes of the parakeets nesting, and did a graphite drawing on the opposite page from one of my own photo's. Came across a lovely poem by John Holloway and added that. Was fairly happy by the time I finished, which was a lovely turnaround from a frustrating start. 

Ida Mitrani: May 2014-The Mandarin duck and the Amaryllis

An illustration inspired by an everlasting love between a Mandarin duck and an Amaryllis...

Derwent Studio pencils with pen
 

I've always had an interest in hybridization and the desire for humans to take control over Nature and create stronger species (selective breeding or artificial selection)

I wanted to create a drawing based on what could be the story of a forbidden and everlasting love. A fairy tale version of  two absolutely different species,which merged together and unite to become one.

Using a drawing I made of an Amaryllis Regina at the beginning of the year, I combined it with the feathers of both male and female Mandarin ducks.

'In traditional Chinese culture, Mandarin ducks are believed to be lifelong couples, unlike other species of ducks. Hence they are regarded as a symbol of conjugal affection and fidelity, and are frequently featured in Chinese art.' Wikipedia




Male feathers are more colourful

 

 

 

I also decided to include the ducks beaks merging them with the buds of the flower.

 

 

 
















 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before, during and after the block

There has been a hold up in the stream of sketchbooks. It was all my fault. At this point I have here 4 sketchbooks. But, no worries, they are all finished now and will be posted a.s.a.p.. The reason why I was so slow is because I was *hit* by a painter's block. It was not only the sketchbooks that suffered but the rest of my projects too. To start with I got Dianne's sketchbook. A bit late but that was fine. I got started on it and the painting went really well and relaxed.

The subjects were mostly special Fritillarias. I knew Dianne really loves Fritillaria so the period I got her sketchbook was perfectly timed. I had to paint some Fritillaria for an other project. The other plant I painted was a twig of a Spiketail shrub I have in my garden. Stachyurus praecox is the Latin name. 

So when that was done the next one had already arrived. It was Lorraine's. At the same time I had bought a Helleborus ericsmithii. Really nice and perfect for the sketchbook. I thought it would be wiser to finish it and then post the two books together since the costs are pretty high. So I started with the first flowers and all went well. But after a few days (I did about one flower a day) I got sick. Spring started and so did the flu season. When I got better I started a new flower and it went terrible. I really couldn't paint what I wanted and I felt so miserable.  Not only because it didn't go well but mostly because it felt like messing up a nice page in someone else's sketchbook. Next day I tried again and again I failed to paint something good. Like my paints and brushes had totally different ideas for this sketchbook. I guess that I also wasn't recovered totally from that flu and I felt so, so bad. So I put it aside and in the next weeks I had a big mental struggle to start painting again. I tried a couple of times on scrap pieces and in my own sketchbooks but it felt so wrong and unpleasant.

Finally one day I felt a bit better and made the decision to stop for now with the watercolours and do only graphite sketches. I first did a test on separate piece of Bristol board and it went well. So I took the next sketchbook that had arrived (Terri's). I still couldn't look again at Lorraine's screwed up pages. I picked several flowers from my garden and started to draw. 

Wow... it really went well!!! And finally after so many weeks I felt better about the project. It's one thing to suffer on your own from such a bad period but if it effects a project with 15 people it really is a high mountain to climb. It's all mental, I know, but once you get in that deep well it is a big struggle to get out of again. Anyway, Terri's got really pretty and I managed to paint in some bugs too to add some colour.

Dianne had asked me if she should keep Jarnie's sketchbook a little while longer but since it now felt better I thought I should hurry up now and get that one done as well. So, here's Jarnie's:

The Horntail was a nice surprise in the laundry room. My son Bertus picked a Cornflower to draw, so that's in it too. I just get so happy from the festive cornflower shapes.

So, that was that and almost ready to post FOUR sketchbook... Can you believe it???? FOUR!... Oh dear, dear... All that was left was the pages in Lorraine's book.... grrrrrrrrr.... but, I was determined to finish it well and not just send it off like it was. So today I picked a leaf of the Helleborus and made a graphite sketch of it. 

There, done! Hope all four ladies will like my entries. In the end I enjoyed all four of them... apart from that huge hiccup (forgive me for that)  ;)

 

The wild flowers of May

The Mugello is a small region near Florence. It is known as a green, rich of water and mountainous place. The Florentines say of it "humid" and avoid to go there during the winter. They start to wander there only on May.

Here the small village of "Campomigliaio", that means "field of millet", where, between the parking and the steam "Carza" I've found one of the many nice meadows full of wild flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the top right the bridge of the small railway

Here what I've found in a few minutes. There are other flowers left, of course. Only these I could draw just in a page of the Terri's sketchbook. And ... I spent more time for identifying than for drawing them !

 

Painting the blues - natures exclamation marks!

I really love irises. I love their fresh confidence - really they aren't the best or prettiest SHAPE for a flower, in the way that perhaps a rhododenron flower or a lilly may be. Compared to those, they're like exclamation marks when they're in bud, or sticky-up rabit ears when they start to open..

But my favourite thing about them is their strength of colour. Many people say they find yellows are difficult to paint, but for me, there are so many colours in flowers that getting the right blues and pinks is nigh on impossible. In every petal there are thousands of colours! 
Claude Monet said ' Colour persues me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep.

Well, one of the joys of sketch booking is letting go of any worry. So it is a treat to allow the flower to win the beauty contest, and allow myself the thrill of playing with and re-emphasising and exaggerating and negotiating with the colours I see. Trying a Cerulean base on one petal, and a Winsor Blue on another, just to see the difference. 

Even though the result is loose and fluid, and the freesia-accompaniments daubed on straight-to-paint, this still takes a while to produce. It is cetainly daubing, but daubing deliberately. 

I stuck 140 lb water colour paper into the book before painting (and realised once I'd started that there was no going back, as it was glued in!!) as I don't like the paper in the sketch book. For me, I like a sketch book to be unpressured (or a different type of 'pressure') creating place, where accidents are welcome. The dryness of the sketchbook paper inhibits this,  and makes the work slower (and therefore more like'work') although I know some others in the group don't mind it.