Mythly

Month: May 2026

  • Painting the summer

    Good afternoon, thank goodness the temperature’s dropped since the highs of Monday , Tuesday and Wednesday. Here in Devon it didn’t get quite as hot as some places, but it was still too hot for me.

     

     

    I managed to do some work in my studio, as in the morning it stays quite cool, but after lunch it became unbearable, so the best plan was to adapt, as I did when I didn’t feel up to painting or on days when I have treatments …I took my work to my sofa, and sat in my cool lounge. 

    Pencil work, is a new found joy, for days when I want to be quieter, and sitting in my house I realise the old builders knew a thing or two ,a house made of cob is generally warm in winter and cold in summer .

    So I hope people in the UK  are cooling down a bit, we’ll all need to adapt, but also lobby for green issues to move up the agenda. Let’s hope we can enjoy the rest of the summer.

     

     

     

    I hope these blogs can provide some light relief ,and some gentle instructions for those who feel inclined to have a go. I hope none of you feel you have to stick rigidly to what I say , I have discovered what I have through trial and lots of error. I have also changed the way I work when I have been told or shown something new, so don’t be afraid of new ideas. Glean what you can from me, and anyone else whose style you like and whose tips are valuable.

     I use winsor and newton paints and bockingford watercolour paper, but I know many other painters who swear by Daniel Smith and Archers , use what suits you. Experiment, be adventurous, and if it works for you then that is all it needs to do.

    , I thought I would revisit a poppy, no reason really except I wanted something bright and cheerful, I love popping that bright red onto the paper, I wanted to keep it loose, and show you how I did it.

    I took a photo

    and printed it off.

     

    Then I did a quick sketch

    Now I get a fairly big brush and wet the poppy and the surrounding paper

    I do have a plan at this stage, I want to keep the area I am pointing to in the photo as bright as I can, this means using the white of the paper and my lightest colours.

    So as I said I wet the paper

    Really wet it all over

    Now I go in with my lightest colour. A lovely light bright Indian yellow, nice bold strokes.

     

    With some spots and splatters thrown in.

    You can see from this angle how wet it all is, I take this opportunity to paint the stem, bring the yellow down and add darker greens to the right hand side.

    Now leave it to settle a bit.

    It isn’t completely dry but I can add some cadmium orange, I am now building up the colour in layers , But I want some of the yellow to show through in the finished piece.

     

    Now I can add my scarlet, how lovely is that, I also let it bleed over the edges. No-one can feel down with such bright colours dripping off their brush

    Sadly when it dries it isn’t as bright, can you see the yellow shining through, and the white of the paper showing through too.

    The more you can play with light and dark the more vibrant the painting will be I think.

    So now I add more red on top of the dry paper.

    Then a bee…( well why not?)

    It has dried lighter again, and you can see the direction of my brush strokes in the flower.

    I now add my darker tones, at the bottom of the flower, the darker purple tone and some indigo against the lightest light to really make it stand out. These are my artistic decisions, you might not like them or want them in your work, you do what feels right for you.

    Then I leave it all overnight.

     

    It give some space between me and the painting when I come back in the morning I can decide if I need to do anything else.

    I decided to add some more red and some gold ink ( my choices again) , I feel it is done, it has brightened up my day and what do you know the sun has come while I have been writing too. Happy Days x

     

  • Beautiful cards from a new artist 🙂

    We have a new artist! Tabitha Macbeth‘s nature designs, sometimes leaning into the surreal, really caught our eye; we hope they catch yours too 🙂

    “Working primarily with chalk pastels and pencils, I aim to convey a strong sense of feeling and atmosphere. I enjoy the process of storytelling as well as the immediacy of drawing from life, especially nature. Often using surreal elements to communicate a sense of inner life, there is an ethereal and mystical quality to my work.”

    Scroll down to view Tabitha’s beautiful art, or order now.  

    A giant orange cat, so large that it covers the width of three fields, lies sleeping, head on paws, in a landscape of fields and hedgerows with gentle hills beyond. A small thatched cottage, smoke rising from one chimney, is nestled in a large garden in front of the cat.

    Dartmoor Dreaming

    Arrival

    A brown hare sits in grass, ears upright, beneath a much larger orange/yellow flower hanging down from a long stem like a lamp. The hare and surroundings appear to be lit by the flower. The sky is shades of deep blue with sweeps of pale cloud.

    By the Light of a Flower

    A rabbit stands, slightly crouched, while white butterflies fly above them. The overall colour is shades of green.

    Rabbit with Butterflies

    A child with long hair sits, arms out-scretched and eyes closed, on the back of a giant black cat as it leaps across a landscape of orange hills, swirly clouds and blue skies. A crescent moon and stars sparkle within the body of the cat.

    Cat Beginning

    A grey heron sits facing to the left in long grass on the banks of a wide river. Branches dangle down from above, and the sun illuminates the river, vegetation, and the outline of the heron, making them appear to glow. Overall colours are shades of green and brown.

    Heron at Fisher’s Pond

  • Here’s something that took me ages to work out… ( waves)

    I thought about what to put in my blog this week and, I thought I would start a small series of blogs about some very simple techniques. They took me a while to work out but  made life much simpler for me as a watercolorist. I must admit most things seem complicated until you’re shown them and then you think, oh gosh, why didn’t I think of that?

    Today I’m going to do a very short blog on painting a wave. OK, as you can see. I’ve started off with a line of. Cerulean Blue., with a bit of indigo mixed in.

    Then I painted another line underneath it. I’m using a dry brush so that you can see some of the paper coming through, but that’s not essential.

     

    Then I get some white acrylic. I put this on when When the paint underneath was a bit wet and that was a mistake. You can see it bleeding into the paint.

    This is the white acrylic that I use, but I think any white acrylic would be fine.

    So moving on. I add my white acrylic. And then underneath the white acrylic I paint with a very very dark line of Indigo. Can you see that this creates the shadow under the wave?

    And then I wet my brush and I blend that dark. So that. It seems as if the wave is curling over. 

    You can add some splatters and splots to show the wildness of the water, look at as many waves as you can to get a feel for them 

     

    I promise you. That if you paint waves like this in the distance. You’d never need to paint waves any other way.

    And where you leave little crests of white, which was the paper. If you just darken underneath again, you get a wave.

    You can put these waves into larger seascapes, 

    I hope this saves you a lot of time and effort that it  took me to work it out.I think all painting is a form of magic, and once you know some of the short cuts you can go on to create your own magic 

     

     

  • A small foxglove painting to try

    So in this blog I thought we’d try a smaller more manageable painting ,maybe a hour or two of watercolour will take you away from the world.

    I wanted to show you all again how I go about exploiting watercolour’s extraordinary properties, to make a lovely watercoloury piece. And sometimes something small feels less daunting….

     

    So I sketched out the foxglove and the bee. Then sprayed the paper with a fine mist, from a water bottle. Then I tapped from my watery brush, droplets of watercolour pinky paint, I used alizarin crimson.

    Then I dabbed the bits I didn’t like with a tissue and let the whole thing dry completely 

    Some watercolourists would carry on wet in wet, controlling the paint and building up an impression of the flower. I like to go in with some detail to have a contrast between the loose and the tight painting. So I began on the small leaves at the top of the flower. Nice bluey greens

    Then onto the flower itself. It’s amazing how many colours are in one flower. There is blue, orangy red and yellow, as well as pink

    I like to leave parts for the ridges on the flower. Getting darker as I go

     

    Then to begin on the inside too, building up colours and shadow. I carefully paint around the white spots with a very small brush. If you’re not confident you could use masking fluid.

    See how I am using blues in with the pinks to reflect the colours around the flower

    Then the bee, yellows first then the ‘black’ parts which I really paint in cerulean blue and paynes grey.

    Small brushes and attention to detail.

    Finally the wings and the legs.

    Now I add a hint at the other foxgloves around and add a few finishing touches.

     

  • Oracle Decks – Blue Angel Publishing/Llewellyn Publications

    Beautiful full color decks available on Amazon