New Techniques in Floral Abstract

Blue with Flowers

Good morning everyone. This is just a quick catchup post, to show you what I’ve been enjoying painting, a floral abstract. Actually, I’m working my way through a course by Suzanne Allard, see here. In fact, I have experimented with loose floral abstracts before, as you may have noticed on this blog. And, I’ve used other media over the paint. But I never felt like I knew what I was doing. So I’m very pleased that I found Suzanne’s tuition on line. Because she guides me through the myriad possibilities of adding crayon, oil pastel, ink and so on. And in a way that I can understand.

Blue with Flowers – a closeup

To be honest, I created the background for this painting a while ago, for a different project. However, I thought that it would work well. And I muted the intense colour of the acrylic paint with oil pastel in places where it needed it. As can perhaps see in this close up. You can see another loose floral abstract in my own style in this post here.

This Week’s Paintings in Watercolour

An abstract for my journal

Good morning everyone. This is a quick catch up post showing you this week’s paintings. Honestly, I haven’t really had much time for creating art. Because things have opened up a bit, I seem to be busier. And, of course, there is lots to be done in my allotment vegetable garden. For example, yesterday I spent a few hours watering everything and weeding the parsnip and broadbean plants. And it was tough on my hands as the ground was hard after heavy rain, then baking hot June sunshine.But, I can’t complain – I absolutely love the fresh, organic fruit and veg we grow.

Our Allotment Garden

Well, you can tell how much I miss painting when I take my sketching kit up to the garden. And snatch a few moments between chores. As you see, I couldn’t resist trying to paint these beautiful flowers. For example, the huge red Oriental poppies are so spectacular and so short lived. Also, the blooms of the purple irises in the tiny barrel pond last just a few days. So I had to include them in this week’s paintings. Fortunately, the mauve foxglove does stick around longer and these self seeded flowers are dotted all around the garden. However, I think you can tell by the way I overworked the watercolour that I am really missing painting with acrylic! There are some more paintings of my allotment here, you may not have seen them.

My Art Journal Abstract – One of This Week’s Paintings

As you can see, I had to do a small, intuitive abstract in my art journal in watercolour. When I was longing to do one on canvas. But, I didn’t have the time, so I really enjoyed creating this smaller one. And, it calmed my nerves, so, a good result all round! Plus the bonus is an interesting experiment in shapes and colours that I could expand into a larger version. When I have time!

A Close up of my watercolour abstract

In fact, I can see lots of possibilities of interpretation here – for some reason it reminds me of cave painting. What do you see?