The Dipladenia: Anything missing?

September 5, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

In between marking assignments and receiving pictures for the SBA exhibition at Palmengarten, the botanical gardens in Frankfurt, I have been painting.

Last time I suggested you find the part in the picture where I had made a mistake, but had rectified it.

Now I have three photos of the final work on the picture – I think!

Dipladenia picture: What is needed to balance the composition?

Dipladenia picture: Notice the difference? Does it work?

Part of my shed. The table looks as though a bomb has hit it, therefore hidden!

What to do with the plants now as it is poisonous. It nearly took the life of one of our cats and is very much a temptation to play with – as well as being very beautiful and exotic looking for our colder climate.

Dipladenia progression

August 28, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I have to be honest that the photos I am sending out in my blog are ones taken during work done over the last couple of weeks. I suppose that rather than show you them as I am doing them, I am still hesitant as to where the painting will go and if I will get over my fear of doing it badly yet again!

I am still spending quite a bit of time on the Palmengarten exhibition organisation which means that some days I have virtually no time to paint. Additionally I mark the assignments for the two botanical art courses at the London Art College. It all takes time off the actual painting. But, I am enjoying seeing the assignments that come in and the development of the students.

Do have a look at the London Art College website if you are interested in doing botanical painting either in watercolour or coloured pencil. Obviously getting hands-on tuition is the best, but sometimes distances preclude this and the distance learning is a good option.

Now a couple more photos from the Dipladenia picture.

Dipladenia flower pair with bud and a flower having lots its fused, tubular petals. — Dipladenia flower pair with bud and a flower having lost its fused, tubular petals.

Dipladenia flower shrivelling & two buds.

Dipladenia – again

August 27, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I am now on my 6th attempt – I think. I’m losing count.

It is a while since I last wrote a blog and since then I have been trying to get my head around my temporary(!) lack of skills. I had decided to paint a Dipladenia plant for the Botanical art exhibition at Palmengarten, Frankfurt in October. The title of the exhibition is Poisonous and Medicinal plants.

Prior to going to Norway I had sketched out and gently started the picture. For those who may not know, the Dipladenia is as poisonous as Poinsettia. But it grows long tendrils and these are a temptation to a playful cat. Unfortunately I didn’t know how poisonous the plant was and I now know that when the cat suddenly became seriously ill before we went away, that in fact he had been poisoned by the plant.The trouble is it also seems to have had a negative affect on my painting skills.

The plant is now in the shed – well away from playful cats, and will be given away once the picture is finished. I will not give up.

This time I have reduced the design and have painted most of the flowers first. I suppose that is asking for trouble as I seem to get a blockage when I get to the leaves. I know what I want to do, but somehow there is a disconnect between my head and the messages sent to my hand and skills with the brush, pigment and water!

I am taking some photos as I go along.

First layer of the dipladenia flower. Note what looks like a heavy dark tracing. It is in fact not heavy and is traced in the method I have demonstrated in an earlier blog. Because no sharp tool, even a pencil is used to do the tracing, the graphite is easily lifted off completely with a putty rubber, leaving NO indent.

The layers of watercolour are almost complete.

Summer botanical art show and open studio in Bosham

August 10, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

It’s raining,
It’s pouring,
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed,
And banged his head, and couldn’t get up in the morning!

Yesterday was beautiful and we had quite a few visitors. This exhibition and open studio is the one I normally have once a year for two weekends during Bosham’s Junior Week. Bosham is a sailing community and all events associated with sailing are very important.

For me, my open studio yesterday was successful in many ways as we had a lot of interested visitors. There is also evidence of a returning economy. But for the young sailors this week, the weather is awful. They want wind to sail – but not dangerous gusts as we are having now. Rain isn’t too off-putting as they get wet anyway. But sun is much better and the norm at this time of year.

How the remnants of Hurricane Bertha will affect the Open studio today I don’t know. It might mean that I paint undisturbed! But time will tell.

I will not show you pictures of my ongoing painting at the moment. I have shown you a little of it previously, but I think the photos were from my first attempt. I am now on my fifth and I have a severe blockage.

The picture is a Dipladenia. The flower is elegant and beautiful and the leaves soft and shiny. Think of Camellia leaves that for a change are very soft and shiny and with clear side veins. I know what I want to do and how I want to do it (watercolour), but the result is not how I feel it should be and I have now thrown aside four pictures. Had I put them all together the picture would have been finished.

People looking at the pictures cannot see what is wrong with them, but I can and that is what is important. But I’m now dreaming about it all. And I have a deadline. It is a picture that will go to Palmengarten this Autumn. I cannot be the one organising everything from the UK and unable to paint a picture!

Any suggestions?

Maybe I should stand outside in this very windy and very wet weather and have everything washed and blown away. I hope you can see what I mean from these photos outside the conservatory.

Workshop and Summer Open Studio

July 30, 2014April 3, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

It has been just over two weeks since I last wrote a blog. In the meantime I have almost managed to forget that I had a holiday!

Since I got home I have worked continuously with the organisation of the SBA Exhibition at Palmengarten Botanical Gardens in Frankfurt. But now I have a slight breather.

Actually the breather is necessary as tomorrow I will be running another workshop. It is called ‘Fruit and Veg; Strawberries and cream’. I think I should have stuck to the Veg, or just beans and courgettes. This is from my garden at the moment. No fruit and definitely no strawberries!

Next weekend 9 & 10 August and 16 & 17 August, I will have my Summer Open Studio Event. For details have a look at my website: http://www.gaynorsflora.com.

But for the last few days I have actually been painting again. I needed a new picture to exhibit at Palmengarten and had drawn a layout for the Mandeville (or Dipladenia)plant. The following two pictures are just a portion of the picture. I have to get going to get it finished in time, but I thought you might like to see how much is done so far. You may remember I started one flower a while ago, but somehow the paper was damaged and I had to start again.

Red is not easy to paint, and the right red even more difficult. By the way, this picture is in watercolour.

The Norwegian Botanical art workshop holiday about to start

June 28, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I am in Norway, in my daughters house, in the lovely town of Tønsberg. I have at last got this far.

I have been chasing my tail for over a week and you can be allowed to feel really sorry for my husband who has borne the brunt of it. Every day , I thought today I would paint – but no. What has happened?

Apart from putting everything together and packing for this workshop, I have marked assignments and spent hours on preparation for the Palmengarten exhibition in Germany.

But worst of all, one of our cats – in fact my daughter’s cat on permanent loan to us, suddenly became seriously ill and nearly died. We have spent a lot of time at the vets and he was hospitalised and on drips to give him some fluids. But, we were allowed to bring him home on Wednesday and we can safely say he has definitely used up one of his nine lives. We now have a lovely cat sitter looking after the animals whilst we are away.

We travelled to Norway yesterday and tomorrow will be trying to find some suitable plants in preparation for everyone’s arrival tomorrow afternoon. I will also be meeting a lady from the Botany Society who has taken a trip up into the mountains to get some special Norwegian Flora for us.

Today was rather cloudy and colder than it has been. In fact my daughter tells me today was the coldest day since March! I have been going on about the beautiful warm weather they have had here. But my tall, strawberry blond daughter is beautifully brown- so it must be true.

Hopefully I will get a few minutes each day to keep you updated about the workshop holiday.

Photos from the small picture of a dead rose head in watercolour. Try as I might I didn’t get a chance to finish it before I left. The other picture is showing a little bit of the chaos in sorting for the Norwegian workshop.

Final day at Stansted and more

June 9, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

I am so tired. Happy, but tired.

Today we had fantastic weather and loads of visitors. For me there continued to be a constant stream of botanical art interested people. So many to explain to about botanical art and illustration.

I wrote this on Sunday and then fell asleep! It was an interesting and rewarding three days which might even have benefits in relation to future work. I also managed to get a little done on the Irises picture in coloured pencil.

This week has been catching up on paperwork, gardening and more painting as I couldn’t bend any more. But now at least we can see the flowers for the weeds and overgrown Forget-me- nots.

Next week I have a three-day workshop called ‘How difficult can Roses be?’. The roses in the garden are now in full bloom smelling beautifully and ready to be painted. Luckily we have all sorts which will allow people of varying abilities and experience to get a good result.

But it is now only two weeks until my husband and I travel to Norway in preparation for the workshop there.

The irises so far.

2nd day at Stansted Park Garden Show

June 8, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

And the heavens opened!

We knew that today(well yesterday now), the weather had been forecast as very bad – although the forecast was changeable. We knew that during the night there might be downpours and several times during the day.

We woke up to a wet nose wanting food ( one of the cats). We noticed it was wet outside, but nothing undue. We were about to leave the house to get to Stansted House when the heavens opened and it poured.

Keep calm and collected as there is nothing that can be done about nature other than dress for the occasion. I donned a sweater, long raincoat and long wellies – as well as my jeans of course. We got to Stansted just as the rain was stopping ( about 1/2 hr after we left.home). We were greeted by a man singing wishful and happy, sunny songs.

By 11:00 the sun was breaking through and the sky rapidly became blue with the odd puffy white cloud. That was the weather state for the rest of the day. Beautiful!

We had a lot of very interested visitors to the stand and discussions ranged from the type of coloured pencil I was using, to the potential for taking part in a new project. Some exciting conversations!

A picture taken during today:

One more day to go. Do come and enjoy the atmosphere.

First day at Stansted Park Garden Show

June 6, 2014April 4, 2015 | Gaynor's Flora

What a lovely day. The weather was super- the sun shone all day, it was warm but not hot and there was a slight breeze.

The stand we have is just inside the Art and design marquis, so we had the benefit of fresh air coming in. I can imagine it might not have been so pleasant on a cooler day, but lovely just now.

As soon as the gates opened to the show, people streamed in and there seemed to be a constant flow of interested visitors during the whole day.

I had decided to demonstrate botanical art using coloured pencil. This worked out well and was obviously the right choice as it attracted quite a few people to the stand. I had loads of questions and this also meant that they looked a little more closely at the pictures than they might have done. I also found out that Irises are in fact a flower that is much appreciated.

This evening has been spent with stocking up again and now a very slightly earlier night than usual.

GAYNOR'S FLORA

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