Portraying by drawing

I chose alstromerias, lilies and some ‘weeds’ to start this exercise and thought I would try using watercolour. I haven’t used watercolour much before but I like the soft colours and the way they run into each other when wet.

I enjoyed doing this and felt the flowers I chose were lovely to paint. However it was the weeds that surprised me and I love the painting made by using the shadow cast on paper with direct light behind the subject.

I feel this captures movement and flow, I stood the plants in front of a light source and painted the shadows cast on the paper.
This method freed me from trying to create an exact representation, and I notice that it captures the flow and movement of the stems.

The following paintings were made using the same method

I particularly like the way in which watercolour can be layered with the first colours showing through.

Shadows and observation, patterns, scale
These images were made by closely observing the flowers and observing what I saw, but there are also two shadow paintings top left and bottom right.

My observational drawings were mostly done with watercolour but I did also try water-soluble oil pastels for one leaf. I found this too strong, controlled and bold for my liking.

Patterns and observations with watercolour

Repetition – this could be developed as a border pattern

Experiments with very wet watercolours running into each other

At this point I tried drawing with a different form of media, and produced a series of iPad drawings, exploring different mark making skills. Using some of my earlier drawings, the results are exciting and surprising in that they are flooded with bold colour and confident strong free flowing lines. The images are full of movement and pattern with lots of ideas for work in fabric.