Friday 10 December 2010

More poppy experiments...



Another poppy experiment using acrylic ink, watercolour and coloured pencils. The original petal shapes were made by printing acrylic ink onto watercolour paper, the result was beautiful texture in the pull of the ink. Once it was dry I added a wash of watercolour and drew in the seed heads with a brush. The dark marks on the under side of the petals were made with acrylic ink once everything had dried.




Glow
20x28cm mixed media on paper
©2010 Lisa Le Quelenec




To bring out more red in the petals I used coloured pencil slowly building it up with varied shades to get a richness of tone. I don't think you can see in the photo but in the dark blotches in the petals there is purple, royal blue and turquoise which zing against the orange and red.


I've promised myself another couple of weeks for experimenting whilst the year draws to a close on exhibition work but I think I can foresee a series of poppy paintings in the not too distant future. ;) I'm really enjoying mixing up media and the looseness and freedom that it involves.

3 comments:

Jazz said...

hello lisa,

thank you for your lovely comments on my blog... i must say, the poppies are delightful and i very much like the organic, delicate washes of colour as seen in the first version, that so effortlessly describe their fragile, papery nature... and is so uplifting to see such vibrancy of colour at this often grey (or sometimes white!) time of year. very oriental, i look forward to seeing more...

Tina Bluefield said...

Hi Lisa,
I love seeing all this new work...you seem to have a special feel for painting with the warm colors, I love looking at these poppies, and the warm palette river paintings...
glad you made it through the snow to warmer weather...it was cold here in the beginning of Dec, too, and now has warmed up enough to eat a late-ish breakfast outside after the sun has been up for a while...

Lisa Le Quelenec said...

Hi Jazz, you are most welcome, those snowy sketches were beautiful. I'm pretty sure it's that cold and snow that is prompting me to paint the poppies. I'm craving red which is really strange as I so rarely use it. Normally burnt sienna is as red as I go.

Morning Tina, thank you popping over. It seems like you are craving the heat too, with your paintings Tomato Soup and Summer Rain. I can't wait for it to be warm enough to be able to breakfast outside again. I'm bored of cold and dark winter already - it feels like forever to wait for spring. The cold makes me really grumpy and I feel for others who have it much worse.