Saturday 21 January 2012

Passion

I'm quite passionate about botanical art. Not only to look at but most of all to draw and paint it. Now I may have written about it before but I suffer from depressions. Botanical art is something that really helps me to stay positive. In the winter months however, it is not so easy to stay so positive anymore. Actually it gets very hard. The passion and the joy to paint is gone and I get a sort of painter's block. On the other hand, I feel even more misserable because I don't paint and draw. And if I do paint, it often turns out to be made for the dustbin. Quite vexing.
So, that is one of the reasons why I haven't painted something for months. Today I finished something though. A watercolour of Passion Fruits. A fun little painting which turned out fine. I first painted the smooth one, then the wrinkled one and finally the opened one with the snotty seeds. That was the hardest part since the colour of the seeds is so strange and it is shiny and semi-transparent, some seeds have a bit of a shape, others are more merged like pulp. It actually resembles a bit a blob of frog spawn.
I painted the fruits first and at the end I enhanced it a bit by using some coloured pencils. Just to make a few shapes pop, add a bit more shade and shape and most of all to accentuate the different textures.

Now let's hope this is the start of a better period and with a lot of pleasure in painting more stuff. Spring is coming... that's always a good time to get inspiration.