Colours of the Month - June

June has been very wet...a monsoon of a month! The blackberry flowers seem to be paler this year, as though the pink has been washed right out of them.

Here are a few colours and drawings I've selected to represent June. Pink seemed to be the dominant colour in the wilds of North Devon, with hedgerows full of Foxgloves, Thistles (just opening), Pink Campion (not yet recorded in my notebook), Blackberry flowers (not quite as pink as last years?!).

The deep blood red blotches from the blackberry leaves are also included, alongside the plumage of the beautiful and sad Bullfinch. Right on the edge climbs the clashing poisonous colours of the Woody Nightshade...

Roll on July!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Lion Heart black

Sometimes I find myself trying to cmd z things when I'm not even on the computer. Imagine if you could undo anything with two fingers on a keyboard, go back and re-do them, I can think of one or two things I might cmd z. Maybe it's just as well that real life isn't too much like Photoshop etc. but right now it would be something at the very least to be able to add a few adjustment layers to increase the saturation and light levels!

This is a Lion Heart Lily, what it lacks in fragrance, it absolutely makes up for in colour - exquisite...

(Margaret the Lionheart x) ...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Nasturtium orange

What's not to like about Nasturtiums?  Both flower and leaves are edible and rich in vitamin C (beware of the armour plated earwigs who like to lurk in the back of the flowers). The colour of the petals is such a vibrant orange/red that the paint couldn't match it, and it has the sweetest peppery fragrance when you get up close. When I was cutting it up to sample it, the smell touched a nerve in my memory that was so far back in my childhood that I couldn't quite reach it, or work out how I'd known it...

it did cross my mind when I was drawing it, that the shape of the flower pod reminded me of Alien - but then I have just recently been to see Prometheus.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

the little things...my new iron

The little things in life that make the difference...

....the most stylish iron I've ever owned !

form as well as function - might admire it on a plinth for a few days.

Colour from the season - Bullfinch orange

Helping Marie to get a print project off the ground, she told me that she spent the previous night printing and couldn't think of any better way to have fun on a Friday night! She asked what I'd been doing, and I told her I'd drawn a dead Bullfinch. I think my evening just had the edge over hers, though I know what she means about screen printing.

A friend found this beautiful (male) Bullfinch and gave it to me to draw. It was another rare opportunity to examine a wild bird closely.  This was the second sketch as I wanted to get it right - or until I felt ok with the drawing. The beak of the Bullfinch is designed for voraciously eating buds and fruit, the orange of its feathers is almost equal parts magenta and yellow...

Outline sketch and first brush work - (acrylic paint)

At this point I wasn't happy with it.

Its coming on Samantha - as my art teacher at school would say (usually when I'd finished).

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season wild Iris yellow

Yellow is one of my favourite colours and I like things that are a bit wild as well, so when I noticed these Flag Irises reflecting dramatically in my local pond, I thought they would be a really sunny start to my June notebook.

In Scotland they were traditionally used to make some of the dyes in Harris Tweed. A yellow dye came from the petals, black dye (Sabbath Black) from the roots when used with iron and a very bright green dye from the spiky leaves.

elementary ?

Wishing you a very Jubilant weekend!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.