A Yellow Rose - The Pilgrim, from my garden.

I love this rose, though I have taken artistic licence and simplified the structure a fair bit.

The main colours used are Indian Yellow and Tranparent Orange with greens mixed from olive green with varying amounts of the two main colours.  I then washed the main rose with Naples Yellow to tone it down a little.

Sunflowers

A couple of sunflower paintings inspired by Fiona Peart.  I love sunflowers and yellow so this was really fun to paint.

 

This was based on Fiona Peart's step-by-step article in the Summer edition of Leisure Painter.  I drew my own version of the flowers and painted it with Indian Yellow, Aurelian, Transparent Orange and greens mixed from olive green and Aurelian.  The flower centres are a burnt sienna mixed with transparent orange.  I dropped clean water on the leaves for texture.

 

I used the same colours as above , this basically started as a 'use-up' painting but in the end thought it turned out quite well.  The centre of the flower has salt put on the wet paint for texture.

Landscapes

Lautrec

Chateau Gandels

Greta Bridge

Venice

Just some of my work done in 2013 inspired by Allan Kirk.

Copyright issues

If you wish to try your hand at any of my paintings then please credit me with the original otherwise you are breaking copyright law.

Abstract - a departure from the norm.

I was just playing with geometric shapes and I think it looks okay.  I used watercolours for this but I'm already thinking something similar with acrylics would be interesting.

There's lots of blue in this one because I like blue.

My first acrylic painting

Sunflowers.  I outlined the flowers in clear tar gel first to give some texture, not sure it really worked though.  I think I'm going to like acrylic when used in a similar way to oils as the brush can create a textured effect to the painting.

My birthday presents

Yesterday was my birthday and my family seems to have heeded my wish for some acrylic paints and brushes so hopefully I can have a go in this medium which will be a departure for me.  I will certainly post the resulting paintings on this blog.  I've been in the garden taking pictures of the beautiful roses so that I can paint at leisure.  I'm pretty excited that I've found out my camera will take close-up pictures of the flowers.  I know lots of artists say you should paint from life wherever possible but given my spinal condition I can't seem to find anywhere comfortable to paint the flowers. I do make notes and sketches for colour, light etc. and take several photos of the flowers from different angles.  I'll let you know how I get on. 

My Escape.

I'm in love with painting as it gives me the chance to create something unique to me on paper.  Life can be very stressful sometimes what with one thing or another and art gives me the escape I desperately need.  I've never really thought about my artwork as being any good but so many people seem to like it that maybe I should share it more.  I'm resolved to put something on this blog every week.  Not everything I do turns out and I guess I have many more failures than successes but everything teaches you something.  Learn by mistakes, but don't dwell on them, just move on.

By the way if you are interested in buying any of my work please email me at jen.collier@hotmail.co.uk

Flowers Painted in June.

 A Rose from my garden, the rose is one of my favourite flowers.

Just to show accidents can be turned into something unique and pretty.  A few accidental splodges began to look like a flower so after a while this is what it turned into, abstract iris.

 Primroses painted without drawing, inspired by the great Jean Haines.  Loose watercolour is rather more difficult than it looks but worth the effort.

 Another (abstract) Iris, I wanted to experiment with colour combinations in this one, Permanent Rose and Indian Yellow.  Makes quite a nice peachy colour.