Demo: Sue Smith - Lemons in Watercolour and Collage

We spent a lovely evening watching Sue create an image of lemons using  Gelli printed tissue  collage background and watercolour.

The image had already been loosely drawn from a photo of lemons hanging on the branch and the tissue pieces placed quite randomly, but I suspect with more thought and experience than we realised as a background. Once the collage pieces were stuck down using Pritt Stick a water colour ground by Daniel Smith was painted around the edges to soften the joins and leave no hard lines. Sue then used watercolour to bring out leaf shapes and stems constantly responding to the developing image, she said it was ‘like building a jigsaw’. Consideration was given to negative spaces and darker areas to define the shapes of leaves and lemons. Final detail was added using Neocolour crayons.

It was fascinating to see the picture gradually take shape from what started as fairly random patches of collage to a completed image. I enjoyed getting incite into how Sue creates her wonderful paintings.

At the workshop on the 27th April we will start the day creating our own Gelli prints. The paper will be provided as Sue suggests that ‘Deli Paper’ from Handprinted is best and ordinary tissue paper doesn’t really work.

We will need an image to work from (flowers/fruit etc) watercolour paper and paint, also some cheap acrylic for the printing. Gelli plates will be provided but do bring yours if you have any. We will provide some Daniel Smith watercolour ground for which there will be a minimal extra charge on the day. To book this workshop please contact Jen or book through the website.