My First Collage

My very first collage

Pen and ink and watercolour trees

Stylised pen and ink drawing of rooks done a couple of years ago

Spring is passing much too quickly for me. I haven't enough time to appreciate all the lush beauty and colour of this, my favourite season. I would like to hang on to it but I know that we are heading quickly for summer and a totally different shade of green. Still, each season has its own particular beauty to appreciate. My aliums in the garden are blooming beautifully and I have seen some truly wonderful ones in other peoples' gardens too. I have posted a picture of aliums near our local churchyard. I really must get around to producing an alium inspired piece of art.....hmmm....will have to think about that.

I love drawing, with my very fine pens, on watercolour paper and then painting parts of the drawing. My "very best friend" paper of the moment is Arches 90lb watercolour paper. It is quite fine and tends to cockle if it is painted over the whole surface, but is perfect for the odd touch of watercolour here and there. I love the crisp texture. I drew three stylised trees and painted the leaves of each with different shades of green. I love fine, delicate painting best. I am not so good with covering large areas with washes and I think that is why I am no landscape artist. I cross hatched the trunk and branches of the trees in ink. I go off into a world of my own when I am cross hatching with one of my rapidograph pens. It is so soothing and relaxing and is wonderful on a good quality paper. I will probably do a "proper" piece of artwork with this design but will put some birds or little animals in somewhere. It does look a trifle bare.

I also decided to try my hand at collage. I have always admired this technique when other people do it and thought I would have a go myself. I used an old copy of Asiana magazine which has some wonderful photographs of highly colourful and richly decorated saris. I must say I found cutting up some of the shapes very fiddly and got a bit stuck up with pritt stick sometimes but I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I like the contrast of drawing in some of the features and collaging others. Not a bad try for a complete beginner even if I say so myself....lol.