I am back to my initial challenge of 10 aquarelles and have taken as subject a cherry blossom branch given the recent synchronicity on cherry trees. This time I combined alla prima type of painting with wet on dry painting.
It occurred to me that just looking at pink made me cheerful. Perhaps that is where the French saying « voir le monde avec des lunettes roses » (meaning looking at the world with rose-coloured glasses) comes from 🙂
I hope you will enjoy the painting and the typical song I thought would accompany it well.
Yesterday I had an inclination to paint the Goddess Mother for my sixth aquarelle. Though she is meant to be golden brown, I wanted to use my Naples Yellow that was laying on the palette so changed the tone of her skin.
For those who don’t know who Isis is or who have been brainwashed by the adoption of the name to describe a bunch of fanatics which has absolutely nothing to do with her glory, here are some words extracted from Wikipedia :
« Isis was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic. She was the friend of slaves, sinners, artisans and the downtrodden, but she also listened to the prayers of the wealthy, maidens, aristocrats and rulers. Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the falcon-headed deity associated with king and kingship (although in some traditions Horus’s mother was Hathor). Isis is also known as protector of the dead and goddess of children.
In the typical form of her myth, Isis was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the Sky, and she was born on the fourth intercalary day. » More information in case of interest at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis
I hope you like the aquarelle and the video from where the image is taken.
This is my fifth aquarelle which has proven to be very ill-assorted to the alla prima technique as the paper was not behaving in the expected way. Upon testing all possibilities I realised I had painted on the wrong side of the paper. I was, however, too lazy to begin again the aquarelle on the other side so continued as it was.
The result is a very dry looking composition of flower. I hope you will not be too harsh in your judgement.
Meanwhile I also decided to take back sketching as a hobby and have produced this sketch. I find its not so bad considering I am self taught and this is done after several years of not drawing anything. I hope you like it.
This is my fourth aquarelle using only aquarelle material. This is again a trial of the alla prima technique with a landscape of green meadows where some poppies and other flowers bloom.
This is my third aquarelle using only aquarelle material. I have tried the alla prima technique with a portrait before I think of applying it to nature and to flowers.
This is my second aquarelle but with better material. The paper used is aquarelle paper and I finally bought a few aquarelle brushes instead of using my big acrylic brushes as I did in the previous painting.
I hope you like the result. The next will be with the alla prima technique and I guess a group of flowers or some landscape.
I realised yesterday that it had been a while since I had either drawn, painted or even photographied anything with great beauty so I thought I should restart that other creative side of me.
For starters, I will go back to using aquarelle which was not my forte when I used to paint a lot. My best medium in painting has always been acrylic as it does not stay wet for so long as oils do and can be used with minimum care and cleaning required during and after usage. The flipside of acrylic is that as they dry faster than oil, any correction cannot be performed as easily as it could be with oil painting.
My first attempt at restarting the painting side is below with two boys fishing at sea. It is a simple aquarelle painting but not dedicated aquarelle paper. Instead I have used simple smooth paper which is usually used for sketching. The result is a rather hazy aquarelle but I am not unhappy with the result. I have challenged myself to produce a series of 10 aquarelles over the following 10 days changing from the normal technique to alla prima and then attempting other variations but all on dedicated paper for aquarelle. Regardless of the result, I will post it so be kind if you find the painting atrocious 😀
Meanwhile I wish all of you a good evening with a short nostalgic song from Cesaria Evora called Saudade.
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Geetha Balvannanathan's Blog - Isis Tratum 
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