We’ve chosen two new cards to celebrate Imbolc, the traditional festival marking the start of Spring, the first of which will almost certainly bring a smile to your face if you’ve spent any amount of time in Glastonbury (the town, not the festival!) 🙂
See more cards and gifts for Imbolc
Imbolc – Debbie deMornay Penny
Imbolc – Bonnie Hawkins
Clouds seem to be the order of the day , it has not stopped raining at all and we seem to just have one grey day after another. I think the light levels and the weather affect us more than we realise, but I use my art to help me negotiate these grey winter months, why not have a go at this relatively simple painting.
Today the sea is in my mind, we don’t live too far from the Devon coast, but it still feels like a treat to me to see the sea, this is an imagined piece, but inspired by the sea
So here is how I painted my piece of a couple walking on a beach as the sun begins to go down and all is well with the world.
First I sketch the scene in my mind
Then I wet the whole paper with water, using my biggest brush.
Then I use a mixture of yellow ochre, with a touch of cad red to give the whole scene a warm glow.
I dried it this way round so it dried without puddles on the paper.
Next I want to hint at distant headlands, first in a pale blue and cad red wash
Then we get a touch darker but I want it to fade to nothing on the right.
The last headland is just a touch darker, don’t paint the next one till the one before is dry or it will all merge together.
Next I move down the paper, hinting at the sea, using mainly indigo, and adding more yellow ochre and cad red as I go.
Now the blues are getting darker.
And I begin adding definition to the waves.
And darker, using strong indigo to define the waves rolling in.
Finally come the people in very dark indigo, and don’t forget their shadows in the wet sand.
I can dry my painting outside to forget about it for a while and let it dry naturally .
So now it is dry I just add a few dots and splatters , step back and check if I need to make any alterations and my scene is done. A simple scene using just 3 or 4 colours, oh to go for a paddle now x
These dark days of winter can be difficult, this morning as I sit in my studio, on a grey January day, with persistent drizzle dripping down my window. I wander into my garden and I pass my Christmas wreath by the back door, fading gradually
I felt those sad mid winter blues that I think we can all be prone to around now.
“Oh no” ( I hear you all cry) ” I started reading this to cheer me up, and she’s all downbeat” Well no not really, it just reminded me that I feel similar feelings every year,
However, as I wandered around my garden I can see signs of Spring
I read these words by the wonderful Donna Ashworth this morning and they are just what I needed to hear
from Donna Ashworth and her book Life
“You may think yourself lazy, or flawed. Yet your body is made of almost exactly the same elements as the stars. Your bone composition matches the coral in the seas and you, my friend, are ruled by the moon and the sun. Whether you like it or not. So no, you are not lazy, Nature is simply pulling you to slow, like the life, the floral and fauna around you. It is not your moment to rise. It is winter, you are wintering. And you are right on time.“
For me light is what I crave the most and to see a strip along the horizon brings a smile to my face and a spring to my step .
So with Spring in mind and with people asking me about my new found love of painting backgrounds what better inspiration than the snow drop ?
Now I don’t want to over state the obvious, but snowdrops are white , so to make them stand out , as with anything white, try to make what is next to them dark. Put your lightest lights next to your darkest darks.
So first I drew my snow drops.
Then I masked them out, using removeable masking fluid. I also added a few splashes and dots with the fluid.
Then I wet the right side of the paper and dropped some masking fluid onto the that to represent some extra snowdrops in the distance….would this work ? …I was experimenting now.
Now to let the whole thing dry…..
I can also reveal that I have a bit of a problem….I can’t help buying more and more paint and brushes…… So much so That I have palettes for different colours , helpful to me when I will be using a lot of one colour here is my green one.
So once the paper is completely dry, and the masking fluid too, time to wet it again, a lot.
Then to flood it with colour, whatever you think best but remember the focus is the flowers so get the colour quite dark behind them. To make colour more intense use a minimal amount of water, to lighten it use more water.
Play around now , be free, and when you like it stop!
I then added cling wrap to the bottom left corner to give texture to the ground where the snowdrops were growing.
I sprinkled salt on the wet paper ( although I must confess I think the paper was a bit too wet and it didn’t work as well as I’d hoped) . I use normal common all garden table salt.
Then when you are satisfied ….leave it…go away, leave it overnight for best results. Turn off the light and forget it till morning….
So now you can remove the cling wrap and see what magic has happened.
I then use a very soft eraser to remove the masking fluid.
If you look you can see the difference between the masking fluid applied on dry paper and that applied on wet paper.
Dry
Wet ( the edges are much softer) This could be used in a seascape, or anywhere else you can think of.
You can also see the salt hasn’t worked as well as I holed but it has in the top left corner and bottom right.
You can’t re-apply salt ( I know I’ve tried) but sometimes you just have to go with what you have . It can work like this
Now to carefully paint the snowdrops, I won’t go into too much detail as this blog is about the background. But I wanted to paint these carefully and precisely to contrast with the background.
Finally the greens and blues of the stems and a few tweaks to the background, I think this final photo shows the colours best, as light levels at the moment are making photographing my work quite tricky.
Have fun with your painting, and do what suits your style, I hope you are feeling ok, wherever you are and are still…like me looking for signs of Spring.
A new year and a whole new world of painting opportunities awaits. What to paint, will it turn out how I want it to?
The weather here is cold and quite grey, very fitting for this time of year. We enjoyed a lovely walk in North Cornwall , Taking deep breaths as my grandma always encouraged us to do, making the most of the sea air.
I have so much I want to achieve with my painting , I want to get better, produce pieces that make my heart sing and that bring joy to others too.
But sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to play, to go where the paint takes us, and let watercolour be magical. So here is an opportunity to let your imagination run wild.
A simple painting to begin 2026
First tape a paper to a board, no need to draw anything.
Then I wet the paper and brushed a lovely mix of indigo and paynes grey across the paper, and let gravity do it’s thing
Then I added a stronger mix of paynes grey and made marks across the bottom third of the paper
Then I just sprinkled table salt onto the landscape.
Just ordinary morrisons table salt. ( other table salts are available)
And wait.
And let it dry
Now in darker paynes grey I add some detail as little
or as much as you like.
