#480 'Sunflower and Buttercups' & Daily Painting

I had an hour to spare in between commitments. It would have been easy to think - I don't have enough time to paint. But it made me focus and work quickly and with intent, no procrastinating! It's come out and fresh and lively. 
I committed to a year of 'Daily Painting'  in 2016. Where I painted small and often tackling a wide variety of subjects like cupcakes, shoes, jugs and flowers. It was such fun and so helpful for my development of skills and confidence. I recommend Carol Marines book on Daily Painting. It's a gem!

#478 'Sunflowers in Glass Jug'

I fancied another go at these lovely blooms! Using a sky colour as a background - Kings Blue Deep and Cerulean mixed together. On a bigger canvas - 16x17" 

#475 Sunflowers

An apt flower with all this sunshine and heat! I seem to paint flowers better when they are in the garden instead of inside my studio with sunshine falling on them. 
Chunking together petal shapes not painting individuals.
Cadmium Yellow deep a useful colour & mixed with Cerulean - for the background.
The composition took so long to arrange and paint and repaint - over an hour of doing this. But it pays off, and I like how it fills the edges and suits the boldness of the flower. Also looking at the ellipse brown centres, drawing them correctly and not to even shapes across the canvas.

14x15" oil on canvas

#465 Daisies & Grasses

I wanted a light an airy feel, difficult with light flowers and a fairly light background. Contrasted dark grasses helps with the tonal composition.

#461 Daisies & Peonies

Daisies in Blue Jug 8x8"

I have rather neglected the blog recently having returned from London and my solo exhibition to distributing sold paintings and sorting out framing for people plus getting ready and taking part in the Open Studios its all go!

So here is a combined post of two recent flower paintings.

The Peonies were light in tone plus light background, the fluffy blousy type! A light touch is needed with the paintbrush to convey the soft petals. Someone said to me you should hold it so delicately to describe this sort of thing that you would almost drop the brush!

Cottage Peonies 10x10"

The Daisies are a lot stronger with lights and darks and deliberate brush strokes. I placed the blue-green behind which compliments the yellow-orange centres. The daisy petals in the shadow are an important element to make the lights stand out.

Surrey Open Studios we are on the final weekend 15th, 16th June of being open to the public, with over 100 visitors so far and enjoying it. Had some lovely people visit - one lady came all the way from Hamble a good hour away! Having read this blog - thank you Brenda and it was great to meet you! - It is so nice to meet people who have been following my blog journey and it encourages me to keep going with it :-)
See my exhibitions page on this website for more information if you are free this weekend and fancy a chat a look at paintings and my husbands photographs.
www.clarebowen.co.uk

#450 CHANGING BLOG LOCATION & 'Snowdrops x 2'

I have decided to move my blog to my website to encourage visitors onto it, help search engines find me and to look more professional. I think the new blog looks better than this google blogspot version - I hope you agree! All 450+ posts and comments are on there and you can still sign up to have my posts delivered to your email. 
My website is: www.clarebowen.co.uk the blog is on there. Let me know what you think.
If you go onto the www.clarebowen.blogspot address in the future it will be redirected to my website blog. 

I painted these flowers a couple of weeks ago and have been waiting for my new blog to be live....

'Snowdrops', I have been itching to paint these little beauties for a couple of weeks watching them grow and panicking that they will start to wilt before I get to them! Thankfully they are tucked under a tree so last longer than the norm. 
I scoured the internet for milk jugs - the perfect size for snowdrops and loved this little one not 'Cornishware' but looks like it.

'Just picked Snowdrops' 8x8"

I painted this one first when the heads were still quite closed. Beautiful and delicate.

#428 'Christmas Clemintines' 6x12" & 6x6"

Out Christmas shopping I spotted these in a garden centre. They don't usually have the greenery on in a supermarket. I haven't painted this sort of subject in a long time so I thought I'd have a go!
I remember having a clementine and walnut at the bottom of my stocking. We asked Mum to keep doing us a stocking into our 20's! :-)

I enjoyed it so much I painted another one straight after!

My studio set up

#408 'Sunflowers series of 3'

 33x35cm oil on linen

16x18" oil on linen

40x40cm oil on cotton canvas

All from the same bunch of flowers. Experimenting on linen canvas - with clear gesso, so its still buff canvas coloured.
Composition - just the heads and a hint of the vase no.1
Old style 'masters' colours with a goldie background no.2 
Provence French blues and yellows, square more contemporary feel no.3 

#351 'Sunflowers' 12x12"

A busy week, hard to keep on top of all the artists jobs to do, including this one!

I am lucky that my Mum supplies me with great flowers to paint, like these :-)

I decided to paint outside again as the natural sunlight works well on a still life especially flowers. I started early so there was only a little patch of sun on the lawn and had to move the flowers at least 5 times chasing the sun around the garden! But it worked out nicely.

I didn't paint the colours of the table or the shape as I wanted it soft and undefined - making the flowers as focus.

I used thick paint towards the end as the subject seams to lend itself to oils and juicy brush strokes.

Click on this close up to see the mark making.

#349 'Peonies in a Ceramic Jug' 12x12"

Peonies by Mary Oliver 

“This morning the green fists of the peonies
are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old,
buttery fingers

and they open -
pools of lace,
white and pink - 
and all day the black ants climb over them......”

Painted outside in the garden with strong light and shade, an enjoyable paint!

#346 'Peonies & Stocks' 24x24"

This is a whopper for me - two foot by two foot!  I enjoyed it and surprised myself that I could do it and it turned out nicely :-)
I did start on a a 11x14" but it still felt crampt so I routelled around in my cupboard and found this canvas, I thought why not have some fun, and keep my expectations low. Which helped allowed me to be free and loose. I didn't have many big brushes - more ordered with Rosemary & Co!

When its so big you have to attack and not be scared. I painted a table line in and scrubbed over as it was too harsh for this style painting.

My Mum kindly gave me these flowers as she thought I'd like them, a very inspiring bunch so much so I started the painting at 6pm! 
Here is a pic to show scale with my biggest previous flower painting to date...

#344 'Daisies & Sweet Williams' 12x12" & Open Studio!

I am enjoying these still life paintings as you can experiment so much with colour & harmonies, composition, subject...
I tried with no hard line background this time, bigger in size and reflected vase on the table.

I can't write so much today as just preparing for opening the last weekend of our Open Studios, do come if your free, I'm just making homemade scones and I have plenty of paintings still to look at.
Clare

Here is the Invite just in case :-)

#342 'Daisies' 9x10"

Painted yesterday during our Open Studios. A busy day with 21 people coming to visit, I've sold 12 paintings to date - got plenty more!! But exciting to have sales and lovely feed back!

This year there are many wild daisies, great blankets of them, they look lovely and I wanted to try and paint them. I experimented with the background colour, I thought it looked like sky and goes well with the white and yellow, also a darker tone than the white petals.

Order I painted this: Green stems, background blue, yellow centres - green and orange variations, mid tone white of the petals blocked shapes, glass, shadows on table. Thats it mainly blocked in and I went back and added light and darks on the petals, and cutting in a little with the blue background to define the petal shapes.

I like the bold shapes and intense colours, I will have to try another one! Our studios (my husband and I) again today, I wonder what the day will bring.... :-)

#339 'White Peonies' 11x14"

I saw these lovely white peonies in the supermarket, a sweet scent and blousie look. 
I managed to paint them while our Open Studio was on last weekend. Quite a challenge to get the tones and colours right. The tonal scale in the flower is so small e.g. Light to very light! They are good practise to really observe. Also the jug is tonal shapes put together! 

There are lots of lovely daisies growing wild near us, I hope to be able to paint them before they disappear... 

#338 'Peonies' 12x12" & Open Studio Video

Painted with haste and gusto! The background a blue black to set of the light pink flowers peonies which are so fun to paint, quite addictive! (There will be more :-) I think they are a good subject because of the globe shape so you get great light and dark on them. I made use of the thick and thin qualities of oil paint, especially in the green foliage and the table.

Yesterday was our first day of The Surrey Open Studio always with trepidation I open the doors to the public not knowing who will come and what they will think, say or even buy.
But it went well we had some nice people visit, chatted, offered my homemade shortbread and sold 4 originals and some cards so a good start!

Here are a couple of pics and a short video as a taster of what's here.

#334 'Pink Peonies' 10x12"

I have wanted to paint peonies for a while, last year they felt too scary to tackle! So I decided to go for it! I painted outside in natural light, there was no sunshine but it didn't matter. I placed a purple piece of paper under the flowers and decided the green grass was too contrasted in colour so made up the background - which was quite liberating! 

This is the painting blocked in, next to the steps of my studio

I worked on loose, lively brush strokes and keeping the colours fresh, clean and bold! How did I do this? Different brushes for each colour, organised palette - premix colours before painting. Background flat area - brush strokes in different directions and lengths, not smoothing or hiding the marks. I used 'Permanent Rose' for the pinks, mainly with Ultramarine and a little Michael Harding 'Kings Blue deep'.

#325 'Daffodils & Narcissi' 8x14"

On Thursday this week I was part of a demo evening with Haslemere Art Society. There were 3 artists including me showing how we work, our process from start to finish.

I decided to paint something from life as I find it more inspiring than a photo. I was a bit worried the daffodils would be over but my husband had thankfully planted 500 bulbs so there was a range in our garden to choose from. (I had also spotted a lovely orange centred narcissi in the neighbours garden, I hope he didn't miss the one I nabbed - all in the name of art of course!)

Before everyone turned up I played around with the background colour, I wanted blue as it looked like the sky, I opted for this deeper blue so it made the light flowers stand out. I also lit the flowers from the side as the same height. 

I was quite nervous before it began unsure as to whether I could 'perform' in front of a crowd. I also wanted to be able to talk while I was painting, which I managed to do and even did a bit of teaching too! People were really kind and interested, I enjoyed it and was relieved my painting came out nicely. To have had a flop in front of others would have been tough!
I premixed the main colours as I do in plein air and built up the painting with a series of patchwork brush strokes, not spending too long in one area. 

One of my previous students Dawn kindly took some pics of me here are a couple:

#322 'Mixed Daffs' 8x8"

I wanted another bash at these flowers with a lighter background and in a glass vase. I choose this green as I thought it looked a bit like grass colour! 

Wishing you all a Happy Easter and heres to more spring like weather :-)

#320 'Spring Daffs' 8x8"

Quite fun to choose the colour combinations when you do a still life. I have lots of coloured paper that I try behind my subject to see what works. This dark blue-green paper made the daffodils really pop and also I liked it that it was close in tone and colour to the ceramic vase.
I tried a different method of painting the flowers which was to map out the yellow petals in one tone and get the shapes right. Trying to simplify and not use to many marks to describe the flowers.
The vase has lots of subtle nuances the reflected yellow from the overhanging daff and light bouncing up from the wood sill its sitting on.
The background some areas I left crisp others I softened, which adds variety and interest.
I hope to do this still life again with a lighter background to see the difference.
Here are the main stages...

#313 'Snowdrops in Ceramic Jug' 8x8" & Viewfinders

Last of the spring flowers for now especially with the snow falling outside! 
These little snowdrops were still good after the previous day painting. I didn't want to repeat the painting so changed from glass to a jug. 
I use a viewfinder for just about all my paintings still life and plein air.
Heres a pic of it:

It helps me to see what's important in my subject, to decide on format - I have a landscape viewfinder too. I also coloured the front and back with different ground colours, see the grey one below:

The colour helps me compare with the subject to my board colour e.g How does the shadow petals of the snowdrop compare to the grey board colour?  

I also check the tones by looking through the little hole and match them to the white and black. Still looking through the hole - compare the colours to different areas of the subject.

Viewfinders are easy to make I used foam board as it's light for carrying around, they are so helpful!

I asked on social media what people thought of the two snowdrops paintings - and the glass vase first one I did came out top which one do you prefer?