Firstly, our brief was to find something colourful and start with that colour on the canvas, then completing the painting with the surrounding colours. This is my work, which took a good couple of days to finish:
Then the sun was too strong to be anywhere other than in the shade....so I looked out passed the rose arbour to the hillside beyond, but kept struggling with the placement of the different objects in view....so first of all I went back over the ground and covered it in a mid greenish grey and tried again.....but again things seemed to jump around, so I gave up painting and scratched the position of the main components. The following morning, this is how the painting appeared, and I really liked the combination of slightly misty colours with the roughly drawn lines...I couldn't bear to touch it, because I knew I'd lose that air of mystery, so here it is:
Next came the hydrangeas - in the deepest shade, so their pale flowers seemed to glow. I liked the pattern of the leaves - large, green leaves that overlapped each other in pairs, with pale green stalks, and the tiny flowers that flopped over the edge of the flower centre.
And lastly, a quick study of just two Hydrangea flowerheads
