Falling for Florals

Florals are my favourite subjects to paint!

Since beginning this blog, I’ve dedicated time to paint whenever inspiration strikes. This has meant I’ve focused on lots of natural subjects and have been exploring the wide array of leaves and flowers I’ve come across on my wilderness walks. Even my husband has accepted we can't go out on a walk without picking up something I find to paint!

Through this process, I’ve experimented with my watercolours and learned more about the painting process. This has done wonders for my initial learning! I’ve discovered a technique in watercolours to do with layering. To get deeper colour depth, you can paint a light wash then paint details on top. A wash at the end of a painting helps increase colour depth and saturation. A small detail brush can be used with feather light strokes to get the details right. This technique has been my new favourite way of adding details and laying down washes to get the desired depth. I am still learning about water control and have to be careful of overworking a piece. When I layer, I can accidently add too much water to an area of the piece and it causes that area to be overworked. This is less likely to be a problem with 100% cotton paper, but I am enjoying the process as I go! Pictured are paintings in my cold press sketchbook from Stillman & Birn. I have two of these sketchbooks, one for on the go and one for the studio.

In an effort to take my watercolour journey seriously I’ve decided to do two things out of my comfort zone:

• Enrol myself for an in person workshop with a local artist

• Join an online course with Helen Cousins Botanics

I am excited to see where this new adventure takes me, stay tuned for more updates!