From an idea to a finished painting....

I thought I would try to explain how I work through an idea ....to a finished painting. Not easy to do but I will try ( this is when I wish I had concentrated more in English instead of doodling in my exercise book!)

 I go for a walk every morning and I have certain things that I just love, cow parsley is one of them and at this time of year giant hog weed ( very similar but larger ) is taking over. I see it and want it to form part of a painting , butterflies and insects are buzzing and flying around me too. I have an idea !!!

I never want to paint everything, my aim always is to capture an essence of what I see or feel. I want there to be some contrast and I want to paint things in new ways too....

I always start with a sketch

In this piece I want to contrast the white of the hog weed against a dark background with a splash of colour .And I want to try some thing new.

I use masking fluid to 'paint' the hog weed....

Now as the hogweed is predominantly white ,I want a contrast I will paint the background in paynes grey making some places very dark indeed. My darkest dark's next to my lightest light's. I will also suggest leaves and shadows. I will play with the textures in the background, splashing water, adding salt, flicking paint etc etc.

I want imagined and real shapes to appear.....

Now I can move onto the butterfly . I want this to be a bright as I can make it , the idea at the start was.... through all the lovely undergrowth and flowers I see a bright butterfly and just focus on him for a second or two until he flies away. Capturing a moment really....

Now I need some patience while everything dries, so I can peel off the masking fluid. I go back in and paint the hog weed stems and some shadows etc , stand back and review my painting.

I have worked through from idea to finished piece, added some new weapons to my artistic armory . Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't but they always teach me something.

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