Vulturine Guineafowl

Another quick one, well as quick as I seem to be able to do watercolours. The Vulturine Guineafowl of Africa. In this case coming through the grass.

Jacobean Lilly

These are spectacular flowers, like most lilies. In this case it is watercolour and 95% complete. I need to finish off a few bits, but towards the end of a painting it is generally safer to hide it away for a couple months and come back to it.

It is always too easy to get impatient and try and do too much. Still it is ok.

Daylily - Hemerocallis citrina

I got some new paper so was playing around with it, Saunders Waterford HP, which was a first for me. The paper feels gorgeous, and lifts easily, doesn't seem to bloom and so on. In short there are a number of nice features, but I am still unsure of it.

As a first go I painted a Daylilly, Hemerocallis citrina but there seems to be a grainy effect to it that has me a little bit bothered. Particularly with the green leaves which I have done hundreds of times, but in this case was really throwing me out.

It is just the first attempt with that paper, so I will push on with it and see how it goes. The yellows which are normally most difficult seemed ok, anyway will experiment further with it.



As an aside I have been using Arches and Fabriano so it is something that is easy to forget how important the paper is when using watercolour. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, and as a painter different papers tend to suit different techniques and styles.

A lot of people get hung up on paints and brushes, but with watercolour I think 90% of it comes down to the paper.