Daily watercolour sketches – purple Salvia

Another low production week – busy with work, under the weather with a cold still and spending lots of time watering the garden in this hot, dry spell. But still got a few things done. I enjoyed starting to use my new palette of colours based on natural ink swatches – I created a digital collage using papercut shapes and a rollered texture in Photoshop. Interesting to see how well the colours sit together, and they work well as semi-transparent overlays.

I used a short length of cordage made from rhubarb skin to add as a couched layer to a panel made from woolen blanket dyed with rhubarb root, and also layers of embroidery thread, linen and yarn dyed in the same dye batch. I’m not that pleased with the composition (it’s meant to be based on rhubarb leaves but it looks like hearts or a map) but I like the idea of making stitched panels linked back to the original plant source of the colour. This one needs a bit more thought…

I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone this month for my daily drawings – using watercolour (a medium I am not experienced with using). It’s finally a good opportunity to record some of the colour in the garden, which has finally started to bloom over the past week. Everything seems about a fortnight behind this year, but many plants are now catching up quickly. So lovely to have some sunshine to accompany the colour after such a cold, wet Spring. Salvias are one of my favourite flowers, and the bees are going crazy for them at the moment too…