Black Hollyhocks and White Roses

7x5.5 watercolor on Italia 140 lb cold press paper, an imaginary garden flower scene in prepping today for a very large one of just black hollyhocks I'm getting ready to paint.  Mixed blacks were done using quinacridone violet, UB, quin magenta, permanent rose, carbazole violet, and indigo.
COPYRIGHT 2020 Kay Smith

Poppified - the Art of Poppies

18x24 watercolor on Canson 140 lb cold press block, Daniel Smith/DaVinci/American Journey paints, done in a direct painting style wetly and quickly.  There are so many ways to paint poppies I never tire of searching for new compositional arrangements.

Perfect Poppies

15x22 watercolor of vivid orange poppies on Italia 140 lb paper.  During last year's trip to UK, dozens of poppy photos were taken with the orange ones in Wales being my favorite.  This was painted wet in wet with one direct application using 1 inch sable flat brush.

Collage - Next Step: More Glue!

The "white" background and inbetween spaces is now collaged with white, off white, and other neutral values of torn paper. Some areas still need to be covered again as I don't want the grays in the watercan to have conflicting values. It needs to be prominent, at least until all pansies are done. Most of them are in as seen here and hot pink one needs to be more pale for contrast. All in all, a fun time and I'm learning more as I go along. Susie advised to add light white acrylic to the background if needed.

Work in Progress: Hollyhock House watercolor

On the right hand side I began at the dark-paned window then mixed greens for foliage, spritzing with fine mist water sprayer as I went along.

Ranunculus with Garden Tools

15x22 watercolor on handmade rough paper, 140 lb cold press, of a handful of pink and yellow rununculus with scissors, fork, glove, and one of my old watering cans.

Bloomsday

15x22 watercolor on Italia Acquerello 140 cold press paper of my old antique watering can surrounded by happy faces of the sherbet-hued pansies. Just waiting to be planted and watered, so I call this one "Bloomsday". Have a

bright Spring everybody!!!

An Early Floral: Fence Row Hollies

22x15 watercolor on 140 lb cold press paper, drawn from my backyard hollyhocks not long after beginning painting in the medium. As you can see it has a million things wrong with it but some had contacted me asking to see early floral or garden works. It was painted wet in wet, Daniel Smith paints.