Spring is just a rumour?
Technically, meterological spring arrived on the first of March. There are certainly signs of it all around our garden but today, as I write this, it’s snowing quite heavily. I’ve been busy trying to ignore the weather and do my best to record the evidence that spring will arrive properly soon. ‘He Who Gardens’ doesn’t like me picking flowers when there are only a few early examples about but I smuggled a couple of our first daffodils into my studio this week. I find them a difficult subject for a painting. Yellow is such a tricky colour to work with isn’t it? It’s not so much the colour itself as the shadows it casts. Any colour you add to suggest shadow tends to make the flower look dirty. Colour theory tells you to add violet from the opposite side of the colour wheel but anyone who’s studied the flowers at close quarters would probably agree there’s more of a greenish tinge.
It’s also quite a challenge to capture the delicacy of the petals. I’ve discovered some of the yellow watercolour paints I have are quite opaque – not at all what you want to suggest transparency and fragility. Lots of water usually helps but, although I thought I had a lifetime’s supply of paint, I might have to get myself to the art shop asap. I shall forgive myself – there are worse sins than stockpiling paint!
Spending time with this year’s daffodils made me remember this larger watercolour and coloured pencil painting I made a while ago. You may remember seeing it on designmatterstv.com. A very similar still life featuring the same vase, flowers and seedheads led me to create a couple of small applique panels. That often happens with me. I start working in my sketchbook or at my easel with no other thought in my head than to try and capture something of my subject and before I know it ideas of how I might translate the painting into fabric and thread just come popping in. As we are always saying, ‘one step leads to the next’ and who knows where a few moments in a sketchbook will take you? I hope like me you are making time to be creative while we wait patiently for warmer days.
Bye for now. Linda x
