Sketches and linocut lilies

It is lovely to receive a bouquet of flowers, even better when I have time to really concentrate on their colour and form by making pen or pencil and watercolour studies of them.  I file any usable sketches in ring binders so I can refer to them, sometimes years later, for reference or inspiration.

These sketches gave rise to more considered work in acrylic, watercolour, collage and lino print; with the latter I experimented further by printing on different painted backgrounds.

The flower petals were lightened with white acrylic,
with gold gel pen accentuating the stamens

A fine liner pen and silver gel pen were used on this print

A couple of early proof prints in my "Experiments" Moleskine -
on the left using fluid acrylic which wasn't successful as a printing medium;
on the right,  gouache and gum arabic print, collaged over a black gesso background

Background experiment

I have made several attempts to use randomly painted backgrounds on which to add floral subjects.  Not all have been successful, but I'm sure I will continue to explore this idea in the hope of the occasional good outcome.

This particular effort started out with some random gesso lino prints on watercolour paper, followed by loose washes of watercolour.  I also added a few dry brush strokes of pale gold acrylic ink, then defined the lilies with watercolour pencil, painting the image with a diluted gesso base before adding watercolour washes to the leaves and flowers.

Lilies - mixed media - approx 4.5" x 6"

More Moleskine collages

Another couple of experimental collages.  This time I used a couple of my sketches from live model sessions, cut these out and pasted them onto backgrounds of handprinted tissue (both 8" x 5").