sketch

Plant form – Honesty ripening no.2

Image | | jennyhillartworkandwords

Plant form - Honesty ripening no.2

Continuing my current series of ink work this is the second plant form study of Honesty (Lunaria), seed head ripening. These self seed around the garden and I feel are a useful addition in the early summer with the white or purple flowers. The tender green seed pod discs evolve picking up purples, pinks and reds as it matures to its end of season form. The silver translucent remains now stand, having shed the brown seeds.
Wikipedia has interesting information for the origin of both names – Lunaria and Honesty but there many other names this plant is also known by.

Plant form – Honesty seed head ripening

Image | | jennyhillartworkandwords

Plant form - Honesty seed head ripening

Before the seed head ripens to brown and silver it goes through a range of pink, red and green. This year was good, not a lot of rain in the summer, hot and dry, so very little black mould to discolour the drying seed head. I used indian and acrylic ink for this painting, reworking an oil pastel sketch from early summer. Throughout the year I fill sketch books with drawings, initially to record my idea of the transformation of plants but always with a focus that this is a resource for future artwork.
I use photographs when the weather is too cold or wet, or I am rushed for time but my preference is to work from my first impression recorded by drawing.

Rose Hip Ripening no.1 – RHS Garden Hyde Hall

Image | | jennyhillartworkandwords

Rose Hip Ripening no.1 - RHS Garden Hyde Hall

A painting using acrylic ink and indian ink, developed from a sketch made on a hot, late summers day visit to RHS Garden Hyde Hall, Essex, UK. At this time some rose hips had turned scarlet red, (see earlier blog post), but this was still in the process of ripening. The smaller size of the paper directs me to paint and draw in a tighter style instead of the looser line I use on larger art works. It’s all in the arm movement. I believe you can identify, without me telling you, which paintings are small and which are large.

Sketch Zakynthos Town

Image | | jennyhillartworkandwords

Sketch Zakynthos Town

Holiday sketch from hotel room balcony while adjusting to the heat of Zakynthos (Zante), an Ionian island off mainland Greece.
This year I took a different sketchbook – Moleskine, a present waiting to be used. I found this a very useful size and format to carry around and my Faber-Castell ink brush pens pulled nicely over the paper surface without bleeding through to the other side. As I am left handed I use sketchbooks by working my way through the back pages to the front (or sometimes upside down), but this sketchbook opens up quite flat if you are drawing across both pages. Initially I was not sure about the yellow tinted paper but now find it a friendly tone to work with especially if you have time to develop drawings tonally.
The little human figures are residents inspecting their water tanks and t.v. aerials plus having a chat and catching the breeze.

Bramley apples on high branch

Image | | jennyhillartworkandwords

Bramley apples on high branch

This artwork was developed from an oil pastel sketch and reworked using acrylic ink and indian ink. The apples were not quite ready to drop but now two weeks later I move out of the way if a wood pigeon takes off knocking fruit to the ground. Some of the apples are quite big……..
This painting will be exhibited in the Essex Maldon Art Trail 2013. My venue this year – Maldon Cookshop, with a really good window space.

Onion bed RHS Hyde Hall Garden, Essex

Image | | jennyhillartworkandwords

Onion bed RHS Hyde Hall Garden, Essex

Onions in the RHS trial/demonstration vegetable plot almost ready to harvest. This acrylic ink and indian ink artwork was developed from a sketch made on my last visit to RHS Hyde Hall Garden, Essex, England.
I grow shallots at home but when they are in the ground they are not as sculptural as these onions.

RHS Hyde Hall, Essex, UK – Rose hip sketch with ink colour test

Image | | jennyhillartworkandwords

RHS Hyde Hall, Essex, UK - Rose hip sketch with ink colour test

I visited RHS Hyde Hall Garden, Creephedge Lane, Rettendon, Essex last week with my sketchbook. This extract is a pen sketch of rose hips with an acrylic ink test strip. The test paper is used to work out the colours I want ready for use when I start on another artwork. There are always adjustments to the ink mixes as I proceed but to have approximate colours means I can work more fluidly.
RHS Hyde Hall Garden is one of my regular haunts, even in winter, but one of my favourite times is now, when plants and trees are fruiting or seeding with the late blast of summer flowers. But if visiting in June for the roses you have to remember to breathe out as all you want to do is take in all the different rose scents.
http://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/hyde-hall