Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday

Remembering all those who have been lost in conflict.

Oil on canvas

Remembrance Sunday

As we remember all those who have fallen in combat over the years, a couple of my poppy pieces.

 Watercolour poppies

Doodled poppies

Creative Tuesdays - Little Birds

Still trying to hone my skills with watercolours and have discovered that they do rather have a life of their own, sometimes a bit hit and miss as well.  More misses than hits at the moment! Things I have found is that you have to be patient with watercolours as they do take time to dry (this I find hard), especially when using wet on wet and to leave well alone once paint is drying, no titivating!  One big surprise was the watercolour paper, it certainly makes a difference using a better quality and not all papers react to the paint in the same way.

So with Little Birds being the challenge over at Creative Tuesdays I painted a few, not all with the same success I might add. These were the one I liked the best.

 This one might not be a little bird, but it was done on a little piece of paper 2.5x3.5 inches.

Pen lines added after the paint.

 

A very loose pencil sketch with paint added over the top.  Smudged splogges are optional!

An acrylic ink one, dropping colour into wet areas.  I just love the effect that the spreading blue gives on this, just like fluffy feathers. It gets very exciting as you have no control whatsoever!  I have a fascination using inks this way, as you cannot predict the outcome.

I have not just been painting birds, oh no, flowers by the bucket load.  I liked this one so much I actually framed it.  Now that is a first for me! Framing my work.

Sorry for the rather long post but I am having such fun experimenting with my watercolours.

There should be a flock of birds over on the CT blog, go check then out.

Creative Tuesdays - Poppies

Poppies are one of my favourite flowers, hence my multiple versions.  I just thought it would be a great idea to use different mediums and see how they turned out.

For this first one I just used black marker pen.  I enjoyed the calming repetitive feeling when doing this one.

The second is a pen and ink watercolour sketch, which is a medium (watercolours) I very rarely use.  I so enjoyed using a dip pen again but the jury is out for me still with my watercolours.  I think it is because I love bold colours and strong lines in my work.

The third is hand painted fabric which is then cut out into little segments and sewn.  The photo does not do this one justice and I was thinking of sewing seed beeds in the middle. This one took the longest and the most planning which I did enjoy.

The fourth and final piece is done in acrylic inks, just putting the brush down randomly to create the petals with no guidance marks. I loved the freedom this one gave me and also the effect I achieved.  They were also so quick!

This was such a rewarding experience for me and I think my order of favourites, looking at them on screen, are 4, 1, 3 and lastly 2. Which ones do you like best?

Thank you Michael for coming up with his great challenge. More poppies over on the Creative Tuesdays blog.