The story of a canvas ...

Hello everyone,

Another canvas finished. Hurrah! After weeks of being unwell, work piling up and a visit from Ofsted (!), I have finally managed to spend sometime with my paintbrushes. As promised, here is the story of Canvas 3 from start to finish. The painting is now titled 'On the Forest Floor'.

The First Layer

The Second Layer 

The Third Layer 

The Fourth Layer - Black and White.

In the process of outlining the ferns.

The Fifth Layer - Adding imagery and warmth too. 

The Sixth Layer - Adding warmth

the final stages of

'On the Forest Floor'

I had great fun creating this canvas and while painting it, did not really think about the imagery that I was using. Now it is complete, I can see that my teenage travels to New Zealand must have penetrated into my subconscious. When I was in New Zealand, I was fascinated by their prehistoric forests. I have included an image found on Google to give you an idea of what they look like.

This has been a fascinating journey for me and well of out my usual comfort zone and style of painting. I hope you have enjoyed being on the journey with me.

Wishing you a very creative week.

Andy

Spice of Life Challenge

Hi everyone

During the past week, I have been insanely busy at school and at home. It took quite some time for me to get over my recent throat problem. The pupils at school were really happy I lost my voice! However, in the midst of all this chaos, I have been able to find a moment of calm to take on this month’s Sketchbook Challenge, a Spice of Life.

I used watercolours, pens and a Sharpie pen to create these images. When I started to think about my favourite spices and commenced drawing them and playing around with colours and a layout, I didn't realise that I would end up creating a recipe - Mulled wine - my favourite at this time of the year. Delicious!

A lot of the drawing was done using continual lines once the warm watercolours were dry. I hope to continue this theme with a couple more drawings or collages before the end of the month.

Hope you like them?

And, I hope you are all having a good week.

Andy