Iris in Brusho

Happy Friday!

Aren't the weeks just flying by?!

I'm back today with a Floral Brusho project. A beautiful Iris that captured my attention at Stonyford cottage gardens in Cheshire became my inspiration for a Painting in Brusho and I had the pleasure of sharing this with a wonderful group of artists in a recent workshop. So I have also included some photogrpahs of their work in progress on the day.

This piece is all about the flow of water. Allowing the Brusho to swim and glide on the paper surface and just encouraging it gently to move with a brush. And using a large piece of paper. Go larger than life to really create a huge flower with maximum impact.

Draw out your image in pencil on a good quality watercolour paper. I used an A2 size 300gm Bockingford.

Apply some small areas of wax resist for the highlights on the petals.

Generously wet the paper on one petal and sprinkle Brusho onto the outer edge. Using your wet brush drag the sprinkles towards the flower centre. This has the effect of diluting the Brusho colours into a variety of tonal shades. 

Colours used here are Purple, Lemon, Light Brown, Rose and Orange.

Some areas have been smoothed with a wet brush to wash the pigment into washes whilst tipping the paper to allow gravity to carry the Brusho crystals along the paper surface.

Other areas such as the stem remain as the sprinkled texture.

Allow these first layers to dry.

Then you can add further detail on the top. Mix a colour on your palette apply a small area onto the petal or stem then move or scratch the Brusho around with a Plastic palette knife and adding more sprinkled colour as you go.

The next photographs show you how attendees of the workshop approached these first layers.

Applying a background can be great fun. 
Really using Brusho to its maximum and utilising its most effective qualities. Apply a liberal amount of water and both sprinkle and brush your chosen colours around the flower. If possible leave a small amount of white space (paper showing) around the perimeter of the petals to help lift the flower shape and create light.

I used darker colours at the base of the image and lighter more diluted mixtures at the top.

Here are a few of the workshop images in progress.

 

Allow the background to dry before completing the final stages.

Use this opportunity to unleash your creative individuality with bold or delicate brush shapes, dribbles of colour, extra background washes and the potential to bleach out some colour for highlights.

Your painting can become whatever works for you and does not need to look like the original flower or photograph to become a successful painting.

 This is my finished artwork.

I've included a couple of iris images if you would like to have a go yourself. We would love to hear from you and see what you get up to. so please do get in touch.

Bec

                                                   

Sketching Pencils	sable hair brush	Clear Spray Bottle	Plastic Painting Knives	palette
Wax resist sticks	15g brusho	Brusho 24 Colour Boxed Set