Leafy Watercolours

Hello all!  I'm here struggling to make my peace with new Blogger.  It's irritating because the thing I'm sharing has been giving me a good deal of peace, calm and joy and now I have to go through this frustrating process with ugly new Blogger to try to share it with you.  (Okay - images just not working - I can't move them around - so I've reverted to Legacy, but have just found this update posted at 5am today, which gives me hope.)

I mentioned when I shared my Simplify, Breathe tags for A Vintage Journey's Watercolour Wonders theme that I was aiming to do some daily watercolouring, since July is apparently World Watercolour Month.  I was in a wonderful watercolour flow a year or so ago, but haven't really played much lately and I thought this would be a good way back in to something which makes me very happy.  I haven't been following the suggested prompts, though.  I decided I was just going to work my way through some leaf studies.

So I'm here today to share the first batch - days 1 to 8.  They come in pairs.  I have been doing daily watercolouring, but day 1 has worked out as being the taping up of the pages, and adding soft background washes across both halves.

And then on day 2 I add the leaves on both "pages".  So far, that has been dictated by work patterns - day 1 has happened to be a busy day, so I've been glad to have only the early stages to deal with.  And day 2 has happened to be quieter so I've been able to give the painting a bit more attention.

But I now rather like the pattern of the work.  And having two paintings on the go simultaneously means that even if I end up not very happy with one, at least I'm usually okay with the other.  I'm working with a 9 x 12 pad of 100% cotton 300gsm paper.

I put together a limited palette of watercolour paints for the month on one of my heavyweight plastic trays.

If you're curious they are Buff Titanium (Daniel Smith), Coastal Fog (American Journey), Rare Green Earth, Green Gold, Serpentine, Green Apatite (all DS), Prussian Blue (AJ, but swapped out on day 7 for Moonglow DS), Blue Apatite, Kyanite, Gray Titanium, Shadow Violet, Lunar Violet (all DS again).

I'll just quickly take you through the pairs.  (I've decided not to chop them up into individual pages until the end of the month.)  There are some I really like.  Other days things didn't flow quite as well, but I'm sure different people will have different favourites... let me know which are yours!

Days 1 and 2...

Days 3 and 4...

Days 5 and 6 (with a little touch of added dip pen and ink)...

Days 7 and 8 (with the arrival of Moonglow - magic!)...

I can't imagine how I managed to leave Moonglow out in the first palette selection - it's my favourite watercolour paint!








I'm still on track as I write this, with the first pair of the next batch already mostly done.  I tend to add extra details as the earlier layers dry.  If you're interested in a couple more process photos in future, I'll try to oblige.  For starters, there's the magical moment when you remove the masking tape... that always makes me happy!














But for now I'll leave you with these couple of close-ups to enjoy the watercolour flow.







Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll be round to see what you've been up to soon.   I know I've been a poor visitor lately - lockdown has done strange things to my processes and habits.  I'm sure I'm not the only one!  Take care all and I'll see you soon.

What I love about watercolour is that lots of happy accidents occur.
Jane Seymour

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge the invitation this week is to Play With Paint
At Country View Challenges they want us to Do What Makes You Happy
I'd like to share these at Paint Party Friday where they are on Week 19 of Year 10