Decisions on subject and media.
As it is winter in Rockhampton and many of the native flowers are in bud waiting for Spring, my choice of subject is limited. I want to select a plant from my garden which will provide an abundant source of material, because:
* Travel is restricted due to controlling covid-19; and
* My drawings will be produced over a number of weeks. A single bloom will have limited value; I need to be able to pick fresh flowers and foliage for each drawing session.
The most interesting flowers in my garden are:
* red hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis);
* Bauhinia tree (Bauhinia variegata);
* my daughter’s collection of Gerbera jamesonii; and
* my Dietes grandiflora.
I chose the Gerbera because they present the opportunity to use different colours.
I was absolutely enthralled by the work of Timorous Beasties and Elizabeth Blackadder when assessing which artists to examine more closely for Research Point 2. As I tried to boil down their appeal, two main areas for exploration emerged:
* watercolour
* botanical accuracy.
In my Introductory Project, I absolutely amazed myself with my rendition of the red Hibisus. To observe and capture a subject in some detail, with information about colour, is fundamental to my on-going development. It is the jumping off point for using original material for inspiration. Coming from a professional background that included no art, I feel I need to get my drawing/painting to a useful level. To this end, I enrolled in a short online course to furnish some watercolour basics, so that I could develop this competency in this exercise.
Kathryn Kerr 