Cascade

On Friday my husband and I were stranded in town waiting for the car to be serviced. The plan had been to do some urban sketching, but the weather turned so chilly that neither of us found the prospect appealing. Instead, we found a haven in the King’s Lynn Library, that wonderful refuge for both the curious and the confused.

After a quick scoot around in search of a ‘view’ I was attracted to this amazing waterfall of a begonia. The light from the window was illuminating the blood-red  reverse of its leaves, yet glancing off the green surfaces.

I used a sepia fineliner to sketch out the shapes, and then dabbled with the watercolours. There was a lack of definition to each leaf at this stage, so I used a sepia brush tip pen to add a little more emphasis. Lastly, I used a flat brush to lift out some paint to indicate the veins on the leaves.

I’m not sure how I feel about this picture. I like the shapes and the cascade effect, but I would have loved to have achieved more colour impact, to better convey the glowing red undersides of the leaves. Maybe I could have used acrylics or  Tombows, but at the end of the day, when you’re sketching out and about, you must work with what you have brought!