After doing a fair amount of drawing in coloured pencils since the start of the year, this week I felt inspired to try something completely different from my usual. Canvas board is not a surface I have used often and the chance to try out a new palette of colours on a new surface was quite exciting. Add in to the mix pens, sponges and cocktail sticks and there has been a fair amount of experimentation. Luckily I am very pleased with the result!

"Late Autumn Apricity", acrylic and pen on canvas board, 500 x 400mm

Actually painting to be strictly accurate and it feels good. July and early August are usually a bit of a wipeout for me with preparations for in Bloom judging, but after that is over there's a chance to get out the paintbrushes again and produce something other than the drawing which I have been trying to keep up with down at the beach hut. As I realise we are now into late summer, or even early autumn - here are some red hot pokers emerging from a shimmer. I've been wanting to paint these unsubtle flowers for a while - and now's the time! I think these will be painted directly onto the background, rather than the collage style that I have been hung up on for a while now.

Finished, with a black frame.
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For a change I've moved onto dry land and into the woods, and made a start on this smaller 'heading into autumn' painting. Lots of work still needed on grass, ferns and branches, and the low sun filtering through the branches. Going for a heavier impasto than the generally 'smooth' style I've been favouring recently.