Blossoms

New small spring paintings finished today! These will be exhibiting at the Affordable Art Fair in Bristol, 18-20 May 2012 with The Fourwalls Gallery, stand E14.
Blossoms and a dragonfly. Gouache, watercolour pencils and collage on paper. 14 x 14 cm
Blossoms and a butterfly. Gouache, watercolour pencils and collage on paper. 14 x 14 cm

Spring Window display at the Nude espresso

Nude Espresso cafe is in East London, opposite spitafields market. You can find it in 26 Hanbury street. E1 6QR. To view their website click HERE
Last tuesday evening just after the cafe closed for the day I went in and decorated their windows for the Spring. 

I draw directly on the glass and I usually improvise, for this season I  did a couple of very detailed flowers, branches, butterflies and dragonflies trying to make it feel like spring!

In this case I used UniPosca white marker pens. They have a big variety of thicknesses, really good thin pens for the little insects and flower details. You can get these pens in the London Graphic Center in Covent garden! Hope you like it!

This is the previous window display I did for them just before Christmas last year. I did a couple of trees with snow, a fox, a couple of owls and some little creatures of the forest.

Holly

The last couple of weeks I have been working on and off on this my latest commission, Holly's portrait.

Holly is the most delightful bubbly little three year old, daughter of close family friends. 

These friends commissioned me a couple of years ago to do the portrait of their first child, Amelie. 

Three years later when their second child, Holly had reached the age that Amelie was at when I painted her, I was commissioned this second portrait.

Now both girls will be hanging beside each other, aged three.

It was a real pleasure to paint both commissions, not only are they both stunning but really sweet, bubbly loving girls.

Hope you like the portrait as much as I do!

Painting materials

For most of my painting on paper I use Gouache, a water based medium. 

I like gouache because of it's intense and bright colours, it is very easy to use and to clean afterwards, you can create delicate transparencies just like with watercolours and very intense opaque colours similar to the ones you can with acrylics. I mainly use Windsor and Newton, thought I like Schmincke too.

I use porcelain paint trays to mix my colours, the surface for mixing is smooth, the paint remains fresh for longer without drying and they are very easy to clean afterwards.

I usually go to the big  Cass arts in Islington (they are usually cheap and always have sales on) or Atlantis in east London to buy all my materials.