Somerset Arts Weeks exhibition, on until 18th October

Somerset Arts Weeks is in full swing, come and see my exhibition while you still can! It’s on until 18th October (note: closed Monday & Tuesday). Here are a few photos of it. Details of where etc in this post.

Papaver Somniferum

There are gaping holes in my ‘Poison Flower Fairies‘ painting series. This suspicious selection of characters so far includes some toxic, medicinal and aggressive types of fairies, but I have yet to add two blindingly obvious ones. One of the omissions is Atropa Belladonna, a.k.a Deadly Nightshade, both notorious and medicinal, and this is partly because I don’t know anywhere hereabouts where it grows though it must be somewhere around, and I do like to draw a plant from life even if it’s sometimes hard to track down the fairies. The other one is almost so obvious you wouldn’t believe…

Digitalis Purpurea, the Foxglove Fairy – Finished

Finally, photos of the Foxglove Fairy finished! Apologies for not posting these before – I wanted to post some really good images of the painting, having spent three or four weeks on it, and photographs are not nearly so sharp. Not only that, but THAT yellowy colour is just one of those colours that is really hard to get just right in a reproduction, as is the purple. I have done my best and the colours are as close to the original painting as I am going to manage. So here she is: Digitalis Purpurea, the Foxglove Fairy: And a…

Urtica Dioica, Stinging Nettle Fairies – Finished!

The painting of the Stinging Nettle Fairies is finished! Decided in the end not to add any other colours than green, sometimes the trick is knowing where to stop! So this painting is entirely in Prussian Blue (see my post about the blue underpainting for the general idea, and the previous post to this one for early photos of this actual painting), followed by a complete pasting-over with a wash of green (mostly Cobalt Green Light, with a little Indian Yellow mixed in). After that, highlights happened simply by a careful removal of some of the green layer with brushes…

Stinging Nettle Fairies

Ok, I’ll admit it, I did in fact finish the Foxglove Fairy some time ago, but I’ve not yet had time to get her on the scanner, sorry! Meanwhile, another poison flower fairy is in order, since I have an exhibition coming up soon – Ilminster in August – and not much painting time left… All the Laburnums are out in flower at the moment and looking lovely, but I have been reading up on them and it would appear their dreadfull reputation is quite overstated, and perhaps I would only add to the paranoia. It would be a shame…

Trust me, I’m an Artist! (The Foxglove Fairy pat 2)

Back to the Foxglove Fairy from the previous post… Here is the blue underpainting finished. At this point the painting looks fine, and you will think I am ok at painting, but after this everything will go a bit strange for a while as I start to add the colour. Trust me: I’m an artist… On go the first layers of colour. In fact you may not notice the very first colour I added, which was white, where the inside of the foxgloves flowers are spotty. Next I filled in the colours of the fairy. …and the purple and greens…

A Poison Flower Fairy: Digitalis Purpurea, the Foxglove

Here’s another one to add to my alternative flower fairies – the highly poisonous Foxglove… When I started with the recent fairies of deadly plants I called them The Poison Flower Fairies, but of course many things medicinal are also highly poisonous in the wrong dosage, and the Foxglove Fairy should be more appropriately named a Medicinal Flower Fairy. It’s too late now… The amazingly useful properties of Foxgloves, or more precisely Digitalin, the mix of toxic molecules extracted from it, was discovered by a certain Dr William Withering (1741 – 1799), and although my fairy does not look anything…

The Caper Spurge Fairy… finished.

And another Fairy spreads her wings… I suspect she may squeak a bit as she flies, in her all-over latex outfit, but, given the dangers of this particular genus of plants, this is a small price to pay for the safety of inhabiting the Caper Spurge. The trouble with Euphorbias is their sap, which is not only toxic, but can cause severe skin reaction and damage to eyes, which explains why my fairy is wearing goggles, too. I have this plant growing here and there in my garden, and it readily oozes toxic sap at the least damage. So I…

Painting the Caper Spurge Fairy, part 2

The Caper Spurge Fairy is beginning to come to life…. Ok, so when I said there wouldn’t be a huge range of colour in this painting, I think I was forgetting a few things… like the fact that I tend to just layer on washes of colour because it’s fun and not because it’s actually the right colour 🙂 So I have begun the ‘colouring-in’ stage of this painting: Having first done the shading part of the under-painting (see previous post), I am adding a basic colour on top. Most of this layer of paint ends up being washed off, but…

Painting the Caper Spurge Fairy

And another poison flower fairy begins to emerge! This one is Euphorbia Lathyris, fairy of the Caper Spurge. I have (probably) finished the blue under-painting stage now, and unlike the last painting this one is definitely going to be in colour… Not a huge range of colour, I must admit: the Caper Spurge is basically green all over – no coloured flowers – and given the toxic effects of this plant the poor fairy has to wear an all-in-one latex outfit, which will probably be black. I shall, however, give her pink rubber gloves, I think! For a little more…