Sparrows & Holly Bush - The finished painting

After my background wash had dried, I re-pencilled in some more background branches and holly leaves and then added another darker wash between these new branches:

and then finally, after all the washes were completely dry, I gently rubbed out any pencil lines still showing using a soft maleable eraser, and added the final touches: some raw sienna touches to the foremost branches, some darker green detail lines in the holly leaves, both the forward ones and the smaller darker ones in the background. I painted in some berries in red, and finally added a little touch of well watered cobalt blue shading to the sparrows and branches behind the sparrows.
And now I have finished, I will put the painting away for a few days to a week before taking a final look to see if I have missed anything or want to change anything and then it will be ready for sale.

I hope you have enjoyed watching the progress of this painting.

Sparrows & Holly Bush Painting update

I have now painted in the darker edges of the main holly branches and leaves in a darker green than the base wash, leave the lighter green as highlights.

And added a darker and variegated background behind these branches and leaves:

Sparrows and Holly Bush Painting

I've finally got down to beginning my painting of the sparrows in the holly bush picture. Here is my painting with the sparrows masked and the outline design drawn and an initial wash of light green.

and here are the sparrows painted in:

Hope you like how it is shaping up.

Sparrows in the Holly Bush

Where I sit and paint I can see the holly bush in my back garden. The small birds love to sit in the holly bush and each year blackbirds nest there. It had grown so much over the last couple of years that this autumn I had it cut back quite hard, so you can see the interior of the bush, and as I sat here painting the other day I noticed a group of sparrows all perched on the cut branches. They looked so sweet, like little feathered decorations, and I thought the scene would make a lovely painting.
Here are my initial sketches.

A New Year's Resolution

Resolutions are dangerous things, usually destined for failure. However, I have recently been involved with the Sketchbook Project and enjoyed blogging about my progress and posting photos and scans of the my sketchbook drawings and paintings. So, my New Year's resolution is to resurrect this blog and incorporate my painting as well as my hats, bags and dresses. So, to get this new blog off to a fresh start here is a painting I have recently finished.
It's titled 'Fish Supper' and is a watercolour of a fisherman sharing his fish and chips with a favourite gull. The painting is 8x10 inches in size and painted on cold pressed NOT paper. I was inspired by a fabulous photo by Ruth Archer, who is an amazing photographer who puts her photos up on a free website for artists to use as inspiration, and I'm very grateful to her for this image.
I hope you like it.

Here are some details:

http://www.folksy.com/items/2888490-Original-Watercolour-Painting-Fish-Supper-

A Black Fascinator

I made this black and red fascinator for my friend to wear to a wedding with a dark red dress. I hope she likes it!
I made it by drawing around a large saucer onto two layers of black sinamay and cutting out the circles. I sprayed them with water and ironed them with a steam iron between two tea towels to fix together. Then once dry, I ironed the joined circles over a small mixing bowl that was covered with a tea towel to make a shallow bowl shape to fit the head and then turning the fascinator base over I ironed it on the edge of my ironing board to turn the top up and out. I wired the edges and trimmed with black bias binding, made black sinamay loops and fixed this to the dip in the top of the fascinator crown and added dark red berries, (which started life as a Christmas decoration) and a silk rose, that I pulled apart and put back together with a black button in the centre. This was fixed in side the black sinamay loop decoration, and then after adding some thin black elastic to hold the fascinator onto the wearer's head, it was done.

A Red Summer Hat

Here is a red straw hat I made from a straw cone. I blocked the crown in my millinery evening class and wired the brim and added the trimming at home. It's a bit wonky, but then so is my head! The sun has finally reappeared, and I'm off out tomorrow on the New Forest Tour Bus, so I will wear it then.