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!