Flowers and birds.

I have been meaning to write for several days now, and I even knew exactly what to share with you. I had a flower painting that evolved a little funny, and I thought it would be fun to show it. However, for some very strange reason I have deleted those progress photos, or saved them in the wrong folder so that I can't find them now...

Oh well.

So, time for a general studio update instead!

I did tell you that I am going to have an exhibition here in Shanghai in April? Well, I am trying now to work towards that.  A whole gallery to fill, and not much time to do it. It is not helping that I am going away for a week on Friday either... But dead-lines are good, I need dead-lines to get work done, so it is all good!

I have been experimenting with my backgrounds, and for this series of paintings I am getting very excited! I love when that happens. I wanted something a little bit simpler, and I am loving the textures! Now I have so many more ideas in my head that I want to get down on canvas...

First up is a heron. The same heron that I have tried to paint once before, but now with a new background. Same idea for the background, but this time I succeeded with getting down what I saw in my head. Sometimes I overthink things when I paint... Background is done with fluid acrylic colours, and a few layers of gel medium in between to seal the acrylic since I used so much water to get the watercolour effect. The heron is taking form in oil colours.

Detail of the heron after one more layer of oil.

 

Flying egret. This is my new favourite I think. I do not know why, but I love it. It is not often I get that feeling of my own work, but this time my vision has really been realised on the canvas. Here I have the first layer of oil down. I guess only one more layer is needed for it to be finished.

I loved this angle...

A little bit the same story for this painting, a swan. The first layer of oil down here as well, one more to go!

Cherry blossoms. Only the blocking in done with acrylics. I have quite many of these planned, but I find the birds more fun to paint at the moment... I guess that as soon as start getting those colours down it will be different.

And the last one, some magnolias. I love to paint magnolias. Their petals are easy, and I am really enjoying this composition as well. One more layer of oil needed before I call these done!