Studio practice: daffs

daffs ~ watercolour study
© Teresa Newham

It's always a good idea to flex those watercolour muscles before trying to do any serious painting.  And as I haven't touched my paints for while, some studio practice seemed to be in order!  The jug of daffodils in the kitchen - past their best, I have to say - made an excellent subject.

the subject . . .
© Teresa Newham

Because this was just a practice, I didn't bother to stretch the 300 gsm Arches sheet of hot pressed paper I took from my trial pack; I simply taped it roughly to the backing board and started to sketch with the paint on the unfamiliarly smooth surface.

. . . .sketched out in paint
© Teresa Newham

I used Transparent Yellow for the daffodils themselves and Cobalt Blue for the shadows, bringing in Permanent Sap Green for the stems and introducing Quinacridone Red amongst the other colours to deepen the trumpets of the flowers and brighten the pattern on the jug.  I added a red and green background for good measure, but the result was disappointing.  What's more, the paper had started to buckle . . .

wet and wishy washy!
© Teresa Newham

Under these circumstances it's usually best to keep going and trust your instincts.  So I deepened the red and the green of the background to bring out the shape of the flowers and the jug.

beefing up the background
© Teresa Newham

The result - which you can see at the head of this post - is far more vibrant.  What's more, that paper dried virtually flat!

from the archives : Kerry photos

white boats at Waterville
© Teresa Newham

Taking a look back through my photos recently, I found many which I haven't yet shared here on the blog.  This is a selection of some of my earliest Kerry photos, which over the years have been made into posters and cards; the images are so familiar to me that I'd almost forgotten about them.

near St Brendan's Well, Valentia
© Teresa Newham

The titles are largely self-explanatory:  but I cannot for the life of me recall where the one below was taken.  As it's been called Reflections since the outset I suspect that I couldn't remember where I took it by the time I got the camera home . . .

reflections
© Teresa Newham

All the examples here are point-and-shoot, with no set up at all.  Sometimes this technique works and sometimes it doesn't, which explains why I can take several hundred photos even on a short visit.  Most of which end up in the bin - good job it's a digital one!

Ballinskelligs Priory
© Teresa Newham

These pictures date from 2007 and 2008 and were taken with my trusty Canon Digital Ixus, which I still think of as my "new" camera even though it's nearly ten years old.  I should probably  think about getting a new one . . .

the shores of Lough Currane
© Teresa Newham

I hope you've enjoyed seeing at these as much as I've enjoyed revisiting them.  Sometimes it's good to look back and re-evaluate photos with a fresh eye - these seem to have stood the test of time, anyway!

Ballycarbery
© Teresa Newham