Beginning slowly...

As ever, when we come to the cottage I have to think about what I will make and how I will make. We have built up a pretty nice studio space and workshop space and gradually our bits and pieces are coming together. I had been looking at some lovely images online and thought how much I would enjoy trying to paint something like that. So, I thought I would set myself a task of working out how to work with watercolours and how to build up a painting. 

Plenty of scope for error right there!

I got out the 8 watercolour palettes I had long ago made some swatches of.

I was trying to create a warm cream colour from these pretty intense and bright colours. I had previously numbered the palette underneath, so I could at least reference the palette. But it became evident from these swatch attempts that there were oftentimes more than one colour being tested from each palette.

 So I decided I then needed to number the colours in each palette as a better guide.

Which helped quite a lot with my swatches. And you can see that by the end I had worked out how to make the warm cream colour I was after using number 1 in palette 8 plus a bit of number 5 in palette 4.

Because I was on a mission of discovery and recording, my side of the table was pretty organised. I was deep into analysing the colour I was trying to create to replicate the painting, and scanning the early swatches for hints of which colour might go with which colour to create it.

Barry on the other hand was painting away merrily and had far more of the flow about him!

By the end of three hours I had worked out how to make all the colours I wanted to use in the painting. There were 10 I had needed to sort.

And I had also worked out that I should also number each palette on top rather than just the bottom - so I could aways create my reference easily and without having turn the palette upside down; or accidentally re-arrange them.

The cottage and the village have welcomed us warmly and we have little birds on the bird feeder tower; beautiful gifts of rosemary and lobelia from neighbours at our door; and sweet peas and cornflowers from another friend.  So much loveliness.

A fair bit of time is also going into bits and pieces for the exhibition and things are coming together nicely. The show opens on Friday 30 August at 7pm.