birthday and painting

Yesterday
I had a lovely birthday with friends
and there will be more celebrating this Sunday :
a dinner party for a special round-figure birthday !

80


Right now the garden is looking lush with blooming trees and new greenery
(haha, birthday beauty for me !)

Just some days ago I started a new gouache painting.
After the initial idea sketch I made a bigger one 
with more elaborate details,
one ready to move onto the heavy water colour paper.
(I often use a grid for that)

I work in layers, starting with the background.
Earlier on I made the whole background in one colour
but with gouache, unlike acrylic paint,
the pigment dissolves again when the next wet layer is added
(colours start mixing !)
So now I changed that and leave certain parts open.

This far I finished today.

 

a fresh start

April started with sunshine and a few showers
but rather cold and windy
so a perfect time to start a new painting.
I always make several small sketches
of ideas that come into my head
for the narrative gouache paintings I love to make.

People sometimes ask
if I shouldn't make illustrations for (children's) books
but then I always tell them
there is already a little story in it . . .

"helping a friend"

I love the visiting birds in our garden
so here's another painting with a great tit in it.
(I made one with them before and it was sold)

Because the Amelanchier (Juneberry) in the garden is in bloom
I thought it was just right to add that one too.
The fun part is, that this (still) small tree
was sown by some bird a few years back !!!

I start with the background when the sketch is on the paper
(300grams watercolour)

There are more sketches
but, tomorrow we have daughter and the children
looking for Easter eggs in the garden
(and it doesn't matter they don't have the egg-hunting age anymore !)