Fallen leaves and things in a jungle.

I was in a dome covered jungle in a Zoo and took some fallen leaves and such. The colorscheme: sienna natur, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, burnt umber, raw umber. And the reds: Indian and English Venetian red. Outlines and brown with Walnut brown; nice mellow colors. I try to remember the colors, as they quickly change and fade. Photographing could be an option, but the colors are different from the real thing. And besides, I want to paint without too much hassle; it is for fun.

Lilly of the valley

Spring: the lilley of the valley is like a weed in my garden; but nice and fragant. While painting larger things like leaves, the struggle will be water management. I used olive green yellow, China iridon violet, green olive, sienna natur and neutral/olive green yellow for the shadows. I would like to find some finer brushes though; red sable with only two or three  long hairs. When making the fine lines on the leaves, the brushes I have -the -10.0- are too thick and too short. They keep too much water as well. Perhaps I’ll try another kind of cold-pressed paper as well. I have 200 grms and will see if there is less absorbant one. But I like the compact size of my Moleskin sketch book…… I want to keep it small, as I don’t want the whole house submerged in my artistic try-outs…..

violets and muscari

Last autumn I planted muscari bulbs under the winterviolets. Throughout the winter the violets continued to bloom and now the muscari are here as well. For the violets I used Indian Red and Ultramarin Violet, for the greens Green Olive/Yellow and for the muscari Bright Blue Violet. Some cadmium yellow as well for the leaves and hearts of the muscari.

Samarkand

I was traveling  last month from Central Asia to Western China. Little time did I have for painting though. The only drawing I made was of a dry pod, twig and a stone that I found in the Registan Square in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The blue dome reminds me of the Bibi Khanum, the beautiful mosque that Timur build for his Chinese princess bride at the end of the 14th century.

Crocus and cochlea

 

It has been snowing this week. Crocus are starting to appear in the garden; violet and white ones first. There are cochlea around for the birds. For the first layer of the cochlea I use a paynes/grey/blue from which I build it up with white, mauve,raw umber, chroom orange and walnut brown. It is amazing to see all those colors in such a thing. The crocus gets bright blue violet, mauve and chroom/yellow/deep. It takes me about a week to finish, as all previous color does have to be dry  before attempting the next color. When it’s done too hasty, the underlying color will mix with the new.

Hydrangea in winter

Winter is not yet over, but things are looking up in my garden. The climbing hydrangea (hydrangea anomala) is preparing for new leaves and eventually flowers. There are remnants of last year’s dried flowers on it’s branches.

Amaryllis

From a Christmas flower arrangement there was an Amaryllis bulb left, which I watered and now has began to bloom. I will  paint the different stadia. When painting this flower; the flowering goes faster than one would like. The flowers get light cadmium red  and then I experiment with dark red/ultramarine.