autumn, some tiny paintings

I am practising painting tiny objects and use small brushes. I am also very busy in practising dry brush techniques. Sooo much to learn:-)
This time I painted a rose hip, a haselnut still in its green jacket and a maple seed.

anemone drawing first stage

At the moment I am working at an anemone drawing.
I want to add more flowers/buds to the composition because it is not in balance. So already I added one tinier flower on the left and I have to work out what to add next.
 I love drawing!

cyclamen leaves, excercise watercolour

For my online course Botanical Art with Leonie Norton I choose the Cyclamen for my masterdrawing and painting.
My next assignment is therefor to paint two leaves of the Cyclamen, front and back.

I do not have much experience with watercolor and I am really struggling. But slowly I think I am getting somewhere and I discover what kind of technique(s) I like.

I took some photos of the leaves, not yet finished but I do not know at the moment how to proceed. So I put them away, practise a bit more and look at them again after a while to see if I can make them better and of course how to do that. It is a bit difficult because at the moment there are no cyclamen available so I only have my notes and drawings to work from.
To see if I painted the right tones I altered the painting in black and white with the help of Paint Shop Pro.

The second two photos are altered, I made the paintings darker with the help of Paint Shop Pro so I could  see what they would look like if I add more darker layers of paint. Again I changed the colours into black and white to see the tones.

watercolour paint, charts, brushes and such

Lately I have been very busy with painting watercolour charts and practising with watercolour paint.
Oh boy, how difficult working with watercolour paint is.
I already learned a lot but still....... I am struggling. I rearranged my paint boxes to make it more easy and made colour charts with the basic colours.

In one box at the first row I put the basic colours because I realise I first have to learn to paint with limited colours. I have to start at the beginning.

In the second row are colours all transparant and the third row are the opaqua colours.

In my second paintbox I put all the other colours, mostly ready mixed colours.

I think I have to get used to mix my own colours so I put these extra colours away for a while till I have more experience in mixing colours.
The watercolour paints are Winsor & Newton artists paints.

What I have learned so far?

• I must take a full load paint in my brush so I have enough liquid to be able to manipulatie the paint and to cover enough paper without I have to fill my brush in between.
• I need to use a brush that is big enough so I can cover a whole area.
• I need to hold the brush more closely to the hairs to have more controle.
• I need to mix enough paint.
• And most of all, I have to try out my mixes and paint and check it before I use it for my painting.
• I have to wait till the paint is dry before I add another layer (patience, patience!)
• Not to scribble.
• To wait till the paper is not too wet when I add a next layer.

I have cheap, less cheap, expensive, more expensive and very expensive brushes like Winsor & Newton nr.7 and Rosemary & Co brushes.
And I really can feel and experience the difference between all of them.

Last year and this year I have been saving and buying 2 beautiful sets of W&N nr 7 brushes.
I want to save them till later when I have more experience with working with watercolour paint.
But I have an extra nr. 2 W&N nr 7 brush and I use this brush to practise with. I love this brush.
Last year I bought nr 4,5 and 6 for 49.95 GBP and this year nr. 0, 1, 2 and 3 for 29.95 GBP from Ken Bromley Art Supplies in the UK
As far as I know they have the lowest prices and their shippingcosts are reasonable.

Furthermore I bought some brushes from Rosemary & Co in the UK.
Some of serie 33 and some of series 323.
They are a bit cheaper than the W&N 7 and I use them to practise and I really love these brushes, not only for practising. They are lovely to work with. These brushes have a very good reputation and they are worth the money for sure.

The cheaper brushes I use for mixing colours and for lifting out and such.

I feel very fortunate that I own  these brushes.

But now the only thing I have to do is:
"learning how to paint with watercolour:-)"

charcoal drawing dog

I just finished this drawing for the course of Val Webb: a drawing with charcoal in black and white. And I could not help myself to put some colour into the eyes.
In real the fur is a bit softer, not so white, more greyish

Drawing of a cat for the course of VAL Webb

I just finished a pencil drawing of a cat for Lesson 2 of a online course with Val Webb.
She is such a wonderful teacher and I enjoy her distance courses sooooo much! Thanks Val.

sketches of the Rododendron

In my neighbours garden there are some beautiful Rododendrons in bloom at the moment. In my own garden I have a bright red colored one, but these sketches are of some pale blue/purple flowers. Such a feast, all those colors. So I made some sketches to explore.
I promised to myself that the next couple of weeks I will concentrate on drawing and painting leaves. The next assignments for either Leonie Norton and Julie Douglas are to paint leaves. I find it so hard to paint them, so I have to practise a lot and a lot to finally succeed in painting some good leaves.

long time not posted anything

I posted nothing news for a while. This was caused by illness and because I started something new. Yes, I bought a dollhouse shop and I have been busy in making plans for it and also I practised in miniature knitting and embroidery. And that all takes a lot of time. I never sculpted such tiny dolls. I hope I will succeed.

But I love drawing and painting and sculpting so I am working at sculpting some miniature baby dolls  and I will start an online course by Valery Webb in drawing cats and dogs in the beginning of May. I already did take a course with her and she is such a wonderfull teacher. I hope that doing this course I will get started with my other courses with Leonie Norton and Julie Douglas. It certainly helps that Spring is finally there.
My little garden is already filled with spring flowers and temperatures are rising.

In the coming months I will have a commission in drawing a little white dog in pastel.

Long time ago last post

I had a bit of a "dip" during this winter. Every body I think has such "dips" and the challenge is to get out of it.
So I decided to start another kind of hobby (I have tooo much hobbies) to get my creative blood flowing again..
I became 65 years of age in Januar and I gave myself a present, a new challenge. I bought a socalled roombox. It is not a  complete dollshouse but only one room.

And it is a shop so I can put all my creativiness (does this word excist?) in it.
Sewing, knitting (Oh, yes, sooo tiny for babies 1/12) embroidery, painting, etc.

So since Januar I have been very busy in surfing the net for information and I bought far too much things to start. There are nowadays so many beautiful things to buy. Not the old fashioned things who were available when I was "young" but more modern things. But I like the Romantic, shabby chic style, so it will be a combination of different styles.

I will call my shop "Dreams", because this dollhouse is/was a dream of mine for many years and I will sell all kind of selfmade things in my shop. Like baby stuff en juwelry and really nice things for women. I hope it will become a really Dream shop.

I started a new blog, you can use the tab "dollhouses, miniature" that you will see above this page and I hope to see you there also.