All posts by Jackie

Photos of pot plants.

photos

Happy New Year.  I have not picked up my camera in quite a few months so I thought I had better use it again before I forget how to.  It is too cold for me outside just now as my arthritic hands just won’t work at all when cold.  Even my craft room is only 14°C  so not great.  Over on A Year With My Camera (AYWMC) I joined the  ‘Plants and flowers’ group once I had completed the course, and January’s topic is: potted plants indoors or outdoors so I took a few photos.  Both batteries for my camera had run out of juice so while I waited for them to charge I used my phone to do an overhead shot of an oxalis. Cropped, a filter and vignette added – I do like the effect but maybe a bit OTT.

Oxalis palmifrons with filter, taken from above
Oxalis palmifrons

Once my batteries were charged I used my mirrorless camera to take a couple of shots against a black background.

Oxalis palmifrons side lit foliage
Oxalis palmifrons
Aeonium Voodoo on a black background
Aeonium Voodoo

Neurographic art

art, art journal, card, neurographic, watercolour

The last few months I have been concentrating on the garden and keeping it alive during the hot weather.  Lately we have been having the conservatory fixed so all the plants that lived there had to be kept on every available table in the house so I didn’t have access to any table.  I finally got my table back and had a go at some neurographic art.  There are quite a few you tube videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtKSOUV7U8U   that show you how to do it and although there is an actual therapeutic method,  I just did it for fun.

watercolour and pen painting with interlacing circles and rounded joinsThis is the painting,  and I took a photo of it and shrunk it to make a greetings card with a black border.  The card is white but as my scanner wasn’t working I had to use my phone camera to photograph it and the card wouldn’t sit flat so I just cropped the white of the card out.

A few floral photos

photos, , , ,

I love spending time in the garden taking photos of various plants but would like to get a bit more arty than the usual ones that I take.  Here are a few floral photos that I have attempted. Some were from an online course that I took (https://ayearwithmycamera.com/)  and some are just me mucking around learning what I can do with my Sony Mirrorless camera or  Xenvo lens for my android camera.  The last shot is Saughton pavilion.

Kingfisher mixed media painting.

art, mixed media, painting

Ali Hargreaves gave another fab demo  on Artist Demo Days on facebook, this time  a watercolour  (or mixed media) of a rather bedraggled kingfisher.  I had a go and made a small painting and it was fun to do.  I still haven’t found a way of getting the turquoise colour to be true on the photo.  I used some shimmering blue acrylic ink and some pearl Pearlex for some of the white flashes on a few feathers.  In other  places I have used white acrylic ink and pulled the ink out to makes the ruffled feathers.  You can also find her demo here.

mixed media kingfisher

Hellebores watercolour painting

art, painting, watercolour

I had a go at Ali Board’s watercolour of some lovely hellebores from her book (A beginner’s guide to Watercolour with Mixed media) .  I have many of these in my garden but they aren’t looking there best right now and, although I do have a few of my own photographs of my hellebores, they don’t look as nice as the ones in her book.

I quite like how it turned out but  I still need to get looser with the paint.  And the phone camera never picks up the subtle shading so it looks a bit bloby and patchy.

hellebores watercolour painting

Tompot Blenny Fish using coloured pencils.

art, painting, pencil, sketch

I was reading a science magazine one day and found a fabulous photograph of a Tompot Blenny fish which looked so colourful and full of character that I wanted to have a go at painting it.  With kind permission of Alexander Mustard (the photographer) I had a go.  I did a rather scruffy, coloured pencil painting/sketch in my sketchbook.   I did not do the photograph justice, so one day I will do a better painting but perhaps with water colour, acrylics or mixed media. It needs some really bright colours.   As usual, some of the blended colours did not show up on the photograph below, especially the turquoise in the background.  It was fun to do but I am not happy with the result, it is too scratchy looking and not bright enough.  Must do better.

 

 

Abstract self portrait.

abstract, art, painting, watercolour

Over on Artist Demo Days on facebook, Ali Hargreaves did a few demos on cubism (it is also on you tube here .   Now, although I don’t like cubism, I thought I would give the self portrait a go as Ali’s finished painting was really good. Cubism uses geometric shapes and lots of straight lines and for someone like me, who likes soft and fluffy, this was difficult.  My hair had grown a lot during the last lockdown and was quite wavy so I used crescent shapes to depict the waves and so that meant it didn’t look too harsh and jaggy.  I used  my Bockingford NOT block 300g as I was going to be using watercolour but I should possibly have used a smoother paper to get smoother outlines.  I ended up using a mixture of watercolour, Marvy le Plume pens, Copic pens, Stabilo pens,  Posca  pens, inktense pencils, gold and silver Pilot pens.  In a few places I added a little sparkle using a gel glitter pen and the outline is in black Faber Castell Pitt pen.  The pale colours in some Copic pens don’t show up well in the photograph, and the dark English red Marvy le Plume looks almost black in places..

You start by jotting down a few things you like and try to incorporate them into your painting.  You don’t have to use them all.

list of happy things

 

You begin with a soft pencil sketch then go over the outline with a permanent pen.

abstract self portrait outline

 

One you have your outline, it is just a matter of colouring in and adding some patterns – great fun.

abstract self portrait

My abstract self portrait is almost zentangle and not really cubism in my opinion.  At the end I added a bit of sparkle and a few gold and silver highlights but they don’t show up on the photo.  The whole process was a lot of fun.

My husband really likes this painting and wants it framed and hung on our wall.  Even though I really like it, I can see all the wee mistakes that I made.  Also I have painted right up to the edges and a mount will cover the detail at the edges.  So my dilemma is: do I start it again using smoother paper and leave a border for a mount, or,  just go ahead and get it framed?  I am quite a lazy artist and don’t like the thought of doing it all again, but I don’t really want to hang something with mistakes in it.  Anyhooo, there is no rush to make the decision as we are in another lockdown, and as we are shielding we aren’t going anywhere.

White cat painting.

art, painting, watercolour

white cat paintingGhost

Sharon Hurst did a demo of this painting of  white cat  (Ghost) over on Artist Demo Days on facebook.  Using salt on the watercolour background is very effective.  The turquoise colour doesn’t show up well though on this photograph.  It was fun to do although I may have made Ghost a bit jowly.