Assignment 11

A short post about my 11th Assignment for the Society of Botanical Artists Distance Learning Diploma.

My time working on a commission meant that I had about a week to complete this assignment. It was extremely busy. I had all these plans about my mixed floral piece, but in the end I had to incorporate sweet peas, which I was already painting for the commission, with a delphinium I had also started preparing.

The delphinium was so beautiful, but as you might be able to imagine, a challenge to draw. As you might have read in my previous posts, I like to complete an ink drawing as well as a pencil drawing as part of my process. It aids the transfer from cartridge paper to watercolour paper, and also acts as a good reference image. Most of the time, I will then use a botanical grey underpainting to focus on form, before laying down my colour washes. 

The final piece:

The main comments from this piece, which I totally agree with, were that that the sweet peas needed to be stronger to stand up against the delphinium. I needed to increase the tones in both the flowers and the leaves. The tutor also commented that my work was a little too stylised. Again, I agree. This happens to my work when I don’t have the time to really look closely at my subject (see Assignment 10). My final mark for this assignment was 8.37 out of 10.