Loving Painting!

At Designmatterstv we’ve been focussing on Laura’s 31 Days of Art Journalling course lately and I have loved working along with her prompts into a little sketchbook but it has meant that my other painting has been neglected. I’m not sure if it’s the return of spring and all that means in the garden but I have been inspired to get the canvases out and get stuck in! Our magnolia blossom has been gorgeous during the early warm, sunny weather but sadly, with the return of frosty nights, the delicate petals have suffered – not before I had time to try and capture their loveliness in watercolour though. That’s the beauty of a painting – the flowers will always be perfect! The still life shows a few of my favourite possessions with the orchid from Marks and Spencer that my mom gave me for my birthday nearly four years ago. It’s getting a bit unruly but flowers its heart out every year.

Part of the rekinding of my passion for painting has been the discovery of a watercolour ground that means almost any firm surface can be prepared to accept watercolour paint. I understand this product has been around for quite some time but it’s been a complete revelation to me and I’m always up for new experiences! The manufacturers say it can be used on wood, cardboard, plastic and even glass but I’ve applied it to canvas panels and I’ve loved experimenting to find out how similar or different it is to painting onto paper. We’ve added a little video about it over on Designmatterstv if you’re interested to hear more details but essentially, the ground is applied to the canvas and allowed to dry – the surface will then resemble the texture of watercolour paper. I’ve used the course ground made by Schmincke but lots of manufacturers have their own versions. One of the advantages of working this technique is that a canvas panel that has been primed for use with acrylic or oil becomes receptive to watercolour paint and of course, a deep edge box panel doesn’t involve the cost of framing. As long as the finished painting is sealed with cold wax it’s protected and ready to hang without the need of glass or frame. I’ll definitely be making more of these paintings on canvas but there is always room for traditional techniques and the two paintings of jugs of flowers sitting on lace cloths shown here are pure watercolour on watercolour paper. I’m not decided yet which I prefer as the paint reacts differently on the ground to how it works on paper – only way to decide is to keep painting I suppose. At the moment I love both!

Bye for now,
Linda x

PS If you fancy owning one of these original paintings all of the above are available to buy in my Shop!