Tuesday 13 May 2014

Peony in Watercolour 2014

Peony in Watercolour

Whenever I paint peony flowers I always  think of my time studying Asian brushwork in China. However my style has changed so much from when I was studying Chinese brushwork under a Shanghainese master. Now I depend strongly on colour and water flow to create my subjects.

Today I have glorious bright red peony in a vase in my studio. They were knocked down in my garden by Bailey,  my over enthusiastic Bearded Collie. Even so every negative has a positive. As these flowers were on very short stems I placed them in a small vase and realised they could be wonderful to paint. And what an experience today was. Allowing red shades to merge with water on paper, to create fantastic pattern effects. Then merging a few green shades amongst the reds gave an illusion of  foliage. Sheer bliss!

Peony "water marks" on my easel

My main problem is that I am a complete watercolour addict. I have had such a great time experimenting with these flowers as subjects that I now want to take a huge piece of paper and see what happens on that next!

Life is great when you are in love with watercolour.

And I am!

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1 comment:

Anne Marieke said...

What you did with that poor knocked-over peony is truly wonderful.
Love it!

It is so lovely that we can all follow what you are doing.