Hi from my sunny , warm , Devon garden. The UK like much of Europe is experiencing very high temperatures and blue skies. We have been warned to expect over 30 degrees over the weekend, all a bit too warm for me, but I live in a very old cob cottage that keeps the heat in in winter and stays cool in summer ( I think those builders knew what they were doing all those years ago).
We have been trying to keep cool, going for early morning walks or late evening ones. We had a lovely walk at Fingle Bridge, early on Sunday morning, staying in the shade.
Then I was invited to go swimming in a nearby neighbour's pond, what a treat on a hot day....
So as we walked through the woods I noticed the blackberries were flowering, we even tried some wild billberries, and I was thrilled to see the foxgloves still doing their thing .
Now I am very lucky and I am approached by some companies to promote their products. I rarely do so but if they are local and of good quality then I will have a look at it. I have heard that footballers are sent brand new boots to try or chefs may get new knives, I was thrilled when I was asked to try this brand new hand made ceramic palette , handmade in a small Dartmoor studio.
I decided to paint some foxgloves. So I squeezed out some pinks, Rose Dore, Permanent rose, rose madder, permanent magenta, Perylene violet, Alizarin Crimson. All lovely different pinks to use in my foxgloves.
The palette was made by Habulous, and it was a joy to use. It made me feel very special, there was lots of room to mix the paints and I can now leave it on my bench when I need pinky hues.
Thanks Nicky for sending me my palette, I shall treasure it.
So I drew my foxgloves and my bees.
Then I began painting in the shades, all wet in wet, in this hot weather everything dries so quickly so don't hang around. I want to show the ridges in the flowers , and the highlights so I left some of the white paper showing. I also masked out the spots inside the flowers
Can you see you want to get really dary inside the trumpet, and much lighter towards the edge.
I also loosely painted some leaves.
Working my way, around the flowers, wet in wet, adding redder tones or bluer tones as needed.
Take your time , each flower can be done in it's own time, I have written blogs about foxgloves before , so if you want more detail do search for those, oh and bees, but it felt very special to be using a handmade palette,
Thanks HABULOUS.CO.UK and Nicky for making it . Stay cool everyone x