Sketch into Spring #2 Use nature in Printing & #3 Capture colour

For the second prompt Alisa challenged us to use nature in our art. Using her beautiful example as inspiration I went outside to my garden to see what I could perhaps use. There isn't much there at the moment, but I found a stem of Lavender from last years gowth, some leaves from an Astilbe plant, a sprig of Rosemary and a Clematis flower. I had a lot of fun mixing paints, brushing it on, dipping the flowers, stamping with the leaves or using them like a paint brush.

I really like the results.

For the third piece Alisa said to 'Capture Colour'; to look outside and paint the colours in my garden, and paint the weather. Ok, I thought; I'll give it a go. 

Today was a mixed bag. The sky was grey in some parts, but clear and sunny in others and we had had some rain.

There are lots of green leaves on my strawberry plants, they have some wee flowes forming that I hope bode well for a luscious crop of fruit. I have a miniature cherry with blossom and some Winter Polyanthus flowers just going past their best. 

I struggled a little with this page. Just letting the paint drip drop onto the page and lifting it to make it run down. It's not ordered or clear and it didn't seem to make sense, but a few hours after doing it, I can see what I was looking at and I am satisfied with it. 

The next prompt, #4, is to 'Illustrate the stages of growth'. 

Need to do a lot of thinking about that one. 

But until next time ................

..........thanks for popping by to say 'Hi'