UP THE WALL – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I was looking to restock my website gallery and thought some clematis might be an option – reminded by mine pushing out some tentative shoots as winter loosens.

Not quite sure whether this works; going for a diagonal display – but the wilful petals conspired to intersect in the middle. As I only noticed half-way through I decided to complete and hold back on any decision.

I thought there could only be one title.

Other floral paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

GERANIUMS – ACRYLIC PAINTING

Last year I overwintered our geraniums in the greenhouse. The frosts were long and hard that year and even under glass most of the plants were lost. So this year we have gathered up the geraniums and brought them into the house. Most of them reside with other tender plants in our conservatory.

Sitting in the conservatory, one bright day, I thought that they might make the subject of a painting, so here it is. After a lovely loose and satisfying start with reds and yellows using liquid acrylics, the task got slower and slower until I almost gave up. I wanted chaos and certainly got it, but then the task of pulling in some recognisable shapes without getting repetitive seemed to elude me. In the end I got some sort of resolution and it does bring out the haphazard nature of one spreading plant.

Other floral paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

AZALEAS 3 – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I’ve been busy of late assembling paintings for my exhibition and planning a watercolour workshop. The workshop isnt until January, but the club I’m doing it for doesnt meet prior to Christmas so they asked me for a drawing of the painting that we are going to do early, to be sent to the attendees.

Whilst doing that drawing I decided to plan out the workshop. This meant completing a painting and noting down everything. When I approach a painting I roughly know the process, but I am apt to wander from the path. This isnt good practice when demonstrating or running a workshop. I am of the opinion you need to be clear in your approach – too many times, when I ran an art club, I experienced demonstrators who had clearly not prepared and the demonstration suffered for it – some never even finished in the allotted time.

So here is my practice piece. I’m glad I did it, as it lacks the punch of my original, so I have made a few amendments to try and regain the original feeling – and duly noted them down.

Other floral paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

WINDOW FLOWERS – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I did this a few weeks ago. I was taken by the light shining through the vase and the hard edges set against the soft forms of objects outside rather than the flowers themselves. I also liked the reflections on the window frame and sill.

A study of suffused calm light.

Other floral paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

CLEMATIS MONTANA – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Lately, I’ve been struggling with a landscape I’ve been painting and on Friday it was my turn to man our pop-up gallery, so I decided to take a break and paint something different to usefully while away my day in the shop.

This was from some photos of a clematis I had growing on one of my walls. It gave up the ghost a few years ago, but last autumn I snapped off a branch that was overhanging an alleyway I walk down. This spring I noticed that the cutting had struck and I planted it near to where the old one was growing. It has already rewarded me with a small flower. Maybe we will be even more successful this time.

So I thought a painting of a clematis might be apposite.

Other floral paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com.

AZALEAS 2 – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I have had a few distractions of late and dont have much to show except a reworking of some azaleas I posted a week or so ago. In this rework I made the flowerheads larger so that they occupied more of the painting surface – after all they are the subject of the painting. I also modified my colour palette to echo the yellow/orange of the flowerheads in the foliage area and pushed the purples and blues in this same area to complement the yellow/orange of the flowers. You can only hope it that it makes a difference.

My original version is below.

Floral paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

AZALEAS IN YELLOW – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Following the last post with my yellow roses, I decided to keep the floral theme going. Besides, I had the yellow paint out, and so I thought that I would have a go at painting the flowers from one of my azalea bushes. In the right light they have an orange tinge and I thought I’d push that in the painting. I used a bit of masking fluid for the stamens, but that was all the masking I did. I was also concerned about all the foliage and decided to do a very loose, almost abstract, background to represent the leaves. So here is the result. Upon reflection I could have got the flowers a shade bigger and perhaps echoed the floral shades in the background with a few loose hints of orange yellow. Though I do like the way the flowers stand out – probably because of the hard edges of the flowers against the soft edges of the greenery.

I also had time to paint a version of the yellow roses for the website. As there was no time constraints I added an extra flower head and below is the result.

So if you need a floral painting or two shoot over to my website and bag yourself some bargains: grahammcquadefinert.com

SUNSHINE AND ROSES – WATERCOLOUR SKETCH

I recently had some requests to do painting demonstrations in the coming months; two of them were for watercolour and one wanted a floral painting in watercolour. I was pondering on what to do when I recalled a painting of the yellow roses that grow in my garden which I did in 2019 and posted on this blog. I was pleased with it at the time, but it has hung around unsold and I thought that it might be a good opportunity to revitalise it and also have it as a subject ready for a couple of demos.

The original one, which I have put below, had quite a lot of hard edges and was perhaps a bit stolid, so I thought that I would incorporate more soft edges and mix those edges up a bit, as well as emphasising the light source to give the image more oomph. Also, in the first one I played around with purples and blues in the foliage to complement the yellows and I thought I could increase this contrast. So here is the result.

I will do another one, with an extra rose – more like the one below – to put up for sale. The one above is just a pilot for the demos. The more complicated you get the painting, the longer it takes to do and there is a chance you’ll not finish it on the night. In any case, I think there is enough in this one to provide a good example of my working practice. For a piece for sale I think the extra rose will give it a better balance.

Other floral paintings – and the one above – are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

SPRING SOARS AND THE IRISES ZING – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I painted a version of this many years ago and was very pleased with the outcome. So, it appears, was someone else, who bought it. The original version played on the lightness of the scene and I wondered whether a more punchy painting was to be had by extending the darks and focussing in on one plant. So here it is, a trifle late as, around here, summer slips to autumn.

Though, hopefully, it zings for you too. My original which I posted in 2015 is below.

Other floral paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

SUNSHINE IN A BLUE VASE – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

In my last blog I was bemoaning the difficulty I had with a painting. Well here is that beast, the one I almost tamed – perhaps we’ll call it a draw.

My wife had arranged some sunflowers in our big glass vase and I walked into the room as the sun was streaming in via a side window – so I had to at least give it a go.

The shadows intrigued me almost as much as the light flecked flowers, so my initial response was to do the painting in landscape format.

This version isnt complete, but shows my initial thoughts on the subject, along with the need to compress the vase for this format. As I painted this I started to think that perhaps I should just focus on the light on the flowers, so I started to paint a new version in portrait format, but threequarters of the way through the painting I realised that I had missed out one of the flowers.

So you brush yourself off, calm yourself down and start again and the result’s at the top.

Well, I’m not doing it again. Well, not for now… Though I have already corrected the out-of-kilter rim you see on top of the vase. The top and the bottom now belong to the same vessel.

Other floral paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com