I've got it!

I think I've managed to grasp this acrylic thing. I've never loosened up this much before and it feels good. Because I'm painting totally from my own photos and nothing else, these observations seem to be turning out really interesting and original. I've never seen the benefits of painting from your own sources quite like this before. 

Had a lot of fun painting these chillies and peppers. This is the exact style I'm going for and the thickness of the paint is what I wanted to achieve. It's easy to work like this in green so I need more practice working in this way with colour. 

My favourite bit.

I've scanned a few of my paintings in and manipulated them on Photoshop. I don't consider these finished designs, they are simply just to see how the shapes and look of the flowers could potentially work in future designs.

I have decided to try painting some bunches of flowers in acrylic. It's proving to be very slow and tricky work. I can't wait to finish it so I can scan it into the computer and play around with it more. Here's my first bunch in progress: 

Today I went to the Harris Gallery in my home town, Preston. I didn't go to see anything specific but there were a lot of nice ceramics with different styles of painted flowers on them. These are some of my favourite pieces. 

Going somewhere?

I've been having a good practice with acrylic, after avoiding it for the past few years. I feel like I'm getting the hang of it now and looking at these 3 paintings together I feel like I might be getting closer to pinning down a style for this collection! I just need to speed up, I need tons more if I want to get some really good fabric samples. 

My first design sheet! Sweet Peas, Pansies & a flower I'm not too sure of the name of, all painted in Gouache. I tried to concentrate on building areas of flat colour and line.

Stretching my legs.

Some quick photos of pages from my sketch book. I have been stretching my legs at the moment, getting used to working with media I haven't used for a while. With in these pages I have used pencil crayon, gouache paint, watercolour & acrylic. I really need to practice my acrylic painting over the coming weeks as I feel it conveys the theme of my work the best.

I intend to try a bit of collage too because I find it very expressive and textured.