My most recent online art class challenged students to come up with something that represented the welcoming of spring and the waving of a metaphorical goodbye to winter. I asked them to include some spring flowers alongside something that represented their winter. Pictured here is my demonstration painting, for which I chose to paint a…
Tag: floral
Beyond the Madness
I was asked last month to make a painting demonstration for a group of non-artists. Given a challenging time limit of not much over half an hour in which to complete the demonstration I unwisely chose too complex a subject – chrysanthemums in a glass vase. My approach to the early stages of painting can…
In Praise of Alkyds
These days I like to vary the media with which I paint, in turn embracing the unique qualities of oils, acrylics and alkyds respectively. I’ve been working with Winsor & Newton alkyd paints for over 20 years; most of my pre-2010 work (and around half subsequently) labelled ‘oils on canvas’ on my website (www.birtall.co.uk) was…
Guilt and Gladioli
I was intending on having a lazy, relaxing Saturday today. However, when I saw these red gladioli in a vase, guilt got the better of me and I felt compelled to have a go at capturing them in paint. I made the resulting painting fairly quickly, in a little over 2 hours, in Daler-Rowney Georgian…
Daffodils #3
Today’s sketch is a watercolour painting of two daffodils. It was painted on watercolour paper, and is around A4 in size. I haven’t used watercolour paints regularly for something like 15 or 20 years, and I’m in the process of remembering how to use them. I approached this image slightly differently to previous recent attempts,…
Drawing Upon Life 