Illustration Blog
The Friary Sunflower | Watercolour Blog Post
In the middle of England there is a house on Friary road, in the back garden there is a sunflower. You can see this sunflower without actually being in the garden, as it towers mightily over the fence and into the blue sky, where it appears to sit amongst the clouds.
Sketching
The sketch for this piece I did on the Ipad. I like using the Ipad for sketching as you have more freedom to pick it up and continue with what you are working on anywhere, you can be sat on your sofa on an evening with a good netflix series in the background, you don't need any of your art supplies, and you don't need good lighting as you would in order to see your sketchbook. It's already lit up which is so useful.
Transferring the sketch to watercolour paper
When the sketch was finished on the Ipad, I needed to get this onto my watercolour paper. I did this by emailing the sketch to my PC, I printed this off onto standard A4 paper and then made a graphite paper sandwich.
What on earth is a graphite paper sandwich you ask? Ah well, you take your piece of watercolour paper (this is your bottom piece of bread, mmm now as I am writing this I am thinking about lovely, sweet carbs) anyway, then I put the graphite paper on top (this is the sandwich's filling, such as your Italian antipasti meats, your Nutella, your homemade berry jam) Then I placed the A4 print out of the sketch on top of that (this is the top slice of bread) I taped this all down to my desk using masking tape, this is quite important because you don't want any of the papers moving around. Then, I traced over the top of my drawing on the A4 print out using a biro. I discarded the graphite paper, and A4 print out, leaving me with my watercolour paper with my sunflower sketch on, ready to paint.
Watercolour
'The Friary Sunflower' - Watercolour Painting video
I filmed the process of painting this piece. The film is up on my youtube channel, so please check it out!
Other things I have been loving in life!
TV Series: The Sopranos - My husband and I have just finished this series, and we are now die hard fans!
Film: Logan Lucky: This isn't a new film, it came out in 2017 but I only just watched it, it's so much fun!
Book: How to kill your family - This is so dark, and yet really funny! I loved it!
Fast Like A Girl - Oh my god has this been an education! This is a book by Dr Mindy pelz where she teaches women all about their body, were talking hormones and what they do, how to incorporate fasting so it actually works well, and the cycle, I recommend every woman read it, it is fantastic.
Healthy clothing - My wearable art. After reading 'Fast Like A Girl' I learnt so much about all the toxins we absorb into our bodies in todays modern world, these toxins effect us in all sorts of negative ways. So I have carefully selected clean, non toxic fabric for my wearable art. If you would like to check this out just head over to my art shop.
My wearable art:
- Printed in the UK
- Ethically made
- Clean cotton fabric
Thank you for checking out my blog post, I hope you enjoyed it and I will speak to you in the next one!
All the love,
Madeleine - The Green Fox
xxx
