A Date with Colour

To be a botanical artist, you need a certain amount of obsessiveness.
Some botanical artists are obsessed with colour, making endless colour charts and memorising pigment numbers and characteristics. Others are passionate about certain plants or  habitats, tenderly creating their own leafy paradises, or travelling to the far corners of the earth to find their subject.

Date studies, 2012

For me, it’s dates (Phoenix dactlifera). I really love painting them. You would think that having painted them so many times over the years that I would be bored of them by now, but I’m not. I still find them fascinating and I still learn something new every time I paint.

Date studies 2013

Now at last the dates have started to ripen. They hang heavy in the trees, full size now, slowly changing from green to a beautiful soft pink, and every colour in between. Gradually they will turn a rich red colour, crunchy and sweet, darkening slowly through the whole range of reds and purples until they are a delicious black, becoming as soft and juicy as a plum. After that they slowly dry out and become the brown fruit that is so familiar to us all. I will need every colour in my box to capture these changes.

Date Studies 2013

They are still not ready for eating, but I want to capture the changes. Last year I did some colour studies of this green to red stage, but of a different variety. For the RHS I have chosen to work on a variety that is more common in Egypt called Hayani. It tastes better too, always a bonus.

Armed with my colour notes from both last year and my leaf studies, I started with the green dates. It’s fair to say that I struggled. The green dates had a blush of pink, and a layer of bloom which made it a challenge, because when you mix green and red you get mud.

So I just kept practicing and practicing, filling my page with dates.  Date Studies 21014

I discovered that the bloom colour depends on the underlying pigment. Where there is a green part, I used cobalt teal and cobalt. Where there was a red part, I would use permanent rose and cobalt violet. First I wet the whole of the date with clean water, and whilst it was still damp, dropped in these bloom colours, allowing the pigments to mix.  Avoiding the areas where the highlights were, I would blend in some Naples in the centre part whilst it was all still damp. I would then build up the layers of paint, blending all the time with a soft clean brush, being careful to retain both the highlights and the softer colours along the edges.

I ended up using a lot of colours! 

I've a nice big palette, but I only used about half of the paints here.

The most important thing though is to closely observe what you are painting… there are shadows and reflections where you don’t expect it. Sometimes the whole thing can come to life with the addition of a blemish or mark. From time to time, I would take some of the layers back off using clean water and kitchen towel.

 I decided to do another quick study, this time with the dates hanging in front of me. 

At first I was going to draw one little spikelet and perhaps not paint every date, but it’s addictive! I couldn't stop!!

 I will use these colour studies for a larger painting that I plan to do when I return to Dublin. 

As they say, practice makes perfect!

Color study of ripening dates, Phoenix dactylifera  'Hayani'  ©Shevaun Doherty 2014

"The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts." 

Henry Moore

Practice makes Perfect

 “Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine.” Ludwig van Beethoven

For a long time now, I have wanted to learn how to paint on vellum. For those that don’t know, vellum is a type of parchment prepared from animal skin (usually calf). It is prized for it’s smoothness, it’s durability and above all, that magical translucent luminosity that it brings to watercolour paintings.

Cherry leaf on vellum, Dianne Sutherland Ball

However, it’s not that easy- painting on vellum is not like painting on paper. It doesn’t like a lot of water, so requires a special dry brush technique and an awful lot of patience. It’s also eye-wateringly expensive!

Fortunately my friend, the very talented Dianne Sutherland Ball, recently set up an online course in vellum painting, and as I am a huge fan of her work, I signed up. I’ll be writing more about vellum as the course progresses.

So this week found me going right back to the basics once more, drawing out little squares and circles onto paper and practicing over and over again- flat washes, graded washes and dry brush techniques. I experimented with different brushes, trying ones that have been long neglected and forgotten, some that have never ever been used! Some worked beautifully whilst others were a total disaster! It’s the perfect excuse to order some lovely new brushes… well, I’ll need them for the vellum!

Back to basic- the top was my first attempt with dodgy washes and odd shaped balls. The second attempt was better. The egg was my first dry brush attempt..

I played with the paint, trying out new ways of putting pigment onto paper and pushing it around the page, lifting and blending and occasionally cursing!  As I worked, I found myself contemplating how beneficial these kind of exercises are, and how they can open the door to new discoveries about ourselves as artists.

A previous practice page of fresh dates (Phoenix dactylifera) with some real ones thrown in

So often in life, we rush into things headfirst, impatient to start and too eager to finish. However, there is a lot to be gained in taking things slowly and going back to the basics. Often the path to mastering a technique requires endless repetition.

Page of olive leaves (Olea europaea)

There is something quite satisfying about filling a page with leaves, repeating it over and over again. I’ve often spent an afternoon, chasing something across a page, each time tweaking it to get the right colour, the right tone.

Struggling to capture the soft fuzzy grey of the Dusty miller plant (Senecio cineraria)

It’s that relentless pursuit of perfection, or as Vincent Van Gogh said “I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.”

Oleander leaves (Nerium oleander) and a strange looking Aloe succotrina leaf 

Cinnamon quills

Shells make great practice pieces

A small dry leaf can keep me busy for a few hours... yes, I'm easily amused!

There's never an excuse not to practice... I once whiled away an afternoon in a busy waiting room .

Next week I hope to start on the vellum and will let you all know how I get on. For now I will leave you with a few useful links and another quote. I'm off to practice some more!

"As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward."  Vincent van Gogh

http://makingamark.squidoo.com/artpaper

http://botanicalonline.wix.com/botanicalonline 

http://diannesutherland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/new-website-for-online-botanical-courses.html

http://www.williamcowley.co.uk/ethical/