paintings prints and stuff

My commissioned  image on the Derwent website I was asked to provide an image using Inktense for Derwent, who were revamping their website.  It's now live.  :>)   .... and they forgot to add my name! It's about flowers rather than being any particular flower.  There are elements of poppies and Queen Anne's Lace and heaven knows what else in there.  Purely imaginary.  It's based on a large canvas I did some time ago. The original much larger canvas Inktense is one of my favourite Derwent produ cts (alongside the XL tinted graphite and tinted charcoal) .  I love the vibrancy and yet it is also possible to mix them to obtain subtle colours.   They are more transparent and luminous than ordinary watercolour pencils and because they dry waterproof I can build glazes and work over layers below as in my image that they used.   I use the pencils and the blocks. It was great to be asked - they previously used an ima...

A lovely weekend at my daughters and I managed to take some close ups of flowers in the garden - the huge tulips had gone over and were losing their petals but looked absolutely luminous in the sun. I tried to catch the fragile dandelion clocks - not terribly successfully :>) the light and shadows on the eucalyptus tree was lovely with the blue grey leaves and warm reddish branches Dont' forget to check on the challenge links - there are new additions to see at the top of the list :>) http://vivienb.blogspot.com/2008/04/sketching-paintbrushes-and-my-day-links.html

I was hoping to go out today and take some photos out in the countryside while the autumn colours are there and the fields are a patchwork of stubble, ploughed and pasture. The light wasn't good enough so I settled for having another play with my macro lenses. These are close ups from my garden. I like that little curl at the end of the leaf :) The roses are still flowering - in a mild winter they carry on virtually all winter - and we've had a few mild winters in recent years. I hope the coming winter is the same, with the lousy summer could it mean a hard winter? The lens as I said before, looks like a filter and simply screws on to the front of the camera - you don't need an SLR. Best of all they are pretty cheap! Beech Leaves - these dry up but stay on until spring. The leaves come out later than most of teh other shrubs/trees in my little garden and I always worry that the frosts have killed it as it sits there covered in last years brown leaves. I thought the ...

images copyright Vivien Blackburn I've been playing with my new 10x macro lens in the garden - autumn and there aren't so many flowers but I'd like to use it on some autumn leaves next. I like osteospermums, they are so generous with their flowers and carry on flowering for such a long time. I've got 2 or 3 slightly different ones - the only problem is the way they close once the sun goes behind the clouds. They really don't like shade at all. This geranium plant is huge and has survived at least 4 winters, left outside in its pot - an old Victorian Chimney Pot. I hope it survives again as it flowers and flowers - right through the winters it kept flowering on, the flowers were small but continuous. It isn't meant to survive the winters! I suppose I should really take some cuttings in case the horrible summer we've had turns into an even worse winter. The lens is a cheap screw on filter-sized magnifying lens. I bought a set that range from 1x to...

images copyright: Vivien Blackburn 2007 My macro lenses haven't arrived yet but I took some close ups today anyway :) I was hoping to get some good pictures of the wild roses on the way home from work but it was just too windy to get a clear photo - I got a good selection of blurred ones which have been dumped :>( . So I went out to the garden and took some pictures of some gorgeous fuchsias, a poppy and some roses against the light. The roses are a bit out of focus but I quite like the old fashioned look to their colouring. I'll be able to work from some of these and others I took. I do like flowers with interesting centres. I've got some timber to make some more stretchers for the long thin canvasses I need and I'm hoping my husband will make a start on them tomorrow so that I can finish the series of seascapes. It's cold and rainy so I didn't even think about sketching by the canal on the way home :>( Youngest cat is in disgrace. Twice recently he'...