Late season hydrangeas in oil.
It feels so great to work in oils again! It is and will always be my first love. I neglect it far too much. In fact, there a lot of things I neglect too much. Anyway…
My hydrangeas are at the end of their summer colour. they were beautifully white and I had dark pinks. The whites turned to greens and the pinks to this beautifully seductive deep burgundy. Some really suffered from the hat and drought of August and crumpled into brown and black splotches among the greens and magentas. I love these colors…rich and old and weathered.
hydrangeas set-up in atelier
Hydrangeas 1
oil on linen, 55x45cm
halfway through hydrangeas 1
Hydrangeas 2
oil on linen, 45x33cm
halfway through hydrangeas 2
I am more impressed with the halfway through hydrangeas 2 than with the completed painting. At this stage I wanted to stop, but just wanted to do a touch more to the surrounding greens. Before I could stop myself, I added touches all over and the painting completely changed. So much for being happy with the painting before adding touches..
Until next time
Ronell
Agapanthus in watercolour.
The agapanthus in my garden are blooming profusely and beautiful in their blues ad whites. To my amazement I realized yesterday i haven’t painted any agapanthus yet. I gave it three attempts. The first attempt is probably still the best , even though it is not what I am after. Most of the time that I try two or more attempts of the same subject, I find that the first attempt is the best.I have experienced it so many times. I think it is probably an instinctive reaction to what you see for the first time in front of you..in order to capture that is…and as we all know… first, spontaneous reactions are always instinctive.
Agapanthus 1: Not great composition, but the first attempt and probably the best of three.
Agapanthus 2: The values way too dark and the overall effect too messy.
Agapanthus 3: Third attempt and I think it turned out the second best of the three efforts. I quite like the lightness of the blooms, but the overall effect is a bit stiff.
Until next time
Ronell
La Dordogne and a walnut grove: catching autumn colours 4.
The Dordogne is such a beautiful river and with the walnut groves just beside it makes for magnificent scenery, especially in October with its multitude of colour.
I am still doing landscapes “the new way”;, although I am beginning to think it isn’t the real me. My sketches are much more loose and more spontaneous, albeit not always pretty and correct. But it is me. The landscape sketches I am doing lately feels more like small paintings done in sketchbooks. They are much more detailed and take much longer than my usual way of sketching. I am still enjoying it though. Maybe I will find that golden median between sketching like this and my usual style..
..la Dordogne in October
watercolour and pencil in A4 sketchbook
..walnut grove..
watercolour and pencil in A4 sketchbook
..à la prochaine..
Ronelle
A vinyeard and a valley..catching autumn colours 3.
I am having so much fun with these landscape sketches. Making a lot of mistakes, but every now and then, there is a successful stroke or a colour or a line and then I can burst with excitement. Most of these sketches are greens. Our hills are very green and at the moment, all shades of greens and yellows. the moire I sketch, the moire I experiment with green and the more confident I become in mixing greens. where I have always mixed my greens on the paper, I have now switched to mixing puddles of greens on my palette…as I say…I am just having fun!
..Puy d’Arnac..
watercolour and pencil in sketchbook A4
..vineyard in Nonard..
watercolour and pencil in sketchbook A4
à la prochaine
Ronelle
Landscape sketches, catching autum colours 2.
I am working hard on landscapes in watercolour. And October is just getting more and more beautiful by the day. I am almost hyperventilating, fearing that I won’t be able to gt enough sketches and paintings done before autumn moves into winter.
Les vaches
watercolor and pencil in watercolour sketchbook21X29.7cm
wood ferns
watercolor and pencil in watercolour sketchbook21X29.7cm
Until next time
Ronelle
Landscape sketches..catching October colour.
I am in the mood to do landscape paintings in watercolour, which is a challenge for me, because I paint corners of landscapes, not full, wide scapes. so I set off this week with a collection of sketchbooks in different sizes and pages and a whole arm full of mediums and I went sketching. I just sketched. Again and again. Some little sketches are awful, others not too bad. I do find it difficult, so I still have a lot of sketching landscapes to do. So. Voiilà. A few of my landscape sketches. In a next post I will show some more and embroider with more détail on my experiences.
I did this sketch at the bottom, after I decided that I didn’t like the one I did above. Then I liked this one even less. but by this time I was fairly tired, so I think the mood and energy to do a decent little sketch, left me.
At home, I just scribbled a few things around me, while we were at the barbecue. they wer done in graphite and a little charcoal here abd tghere.
à bientôt
Ronelle
November yellows
There are colours to wear and colours for the home and colours to just admire. I don’t wear yellow and I don’t decorate my home with yellow, but I love yellow in nature, especially all the autumn shades.
I played around with lines and brushes, brush strokes, splotches and of course colour.
