Category: Watercolours

Hand-coloured Magnolias

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“I’ve always loved magnolia trees and their blooms—there’s something so beautiful about a magnolia blossom. It demands attention, and you can’t help but love those big, creamy petals and that fragrant smell.”~ Joanna Gaimes, The Magnolia Story

I haven’t had much success growing a magnolia tree on the farm, although I love to see the bare branches festooned with pink flowers in the early spring. They would have to be one of my favorite non-native trees. What I haven’t been able to capture here is the velvety brown undersides of the leaves and, of course, their lovely aroma!

Hand coloured Lotus pond

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“From the mud of adversity grows the lotus of joy” – Carolyn Marsden

This linocut has been hand painted with watercolors, possibly a bit too soon after it was printed because the black ink has ‘reanimated’ in some places. Curse my impatience. One thing I need to learn from my art practice is to slow down and enjoy the process. Almost all my mistakes and imperfections are caused by rushing.

I am going to do a bit more work with this design to create a repeating pattern and recarve it. Since I have practiced with better quality tools, I can get finer detail and more consistent cross hatching. You can see another version of this print a few posts back, overlaid with a ghost print. Which one do you like best and what would you change to improve the image?

Eye to the tops’l

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“Sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~ Unknown author

This nautical image was created from one of my grandmother’s photos, taken aboard the “Herzogin Cecile”. Pamela Cristobel Bourne was my father’s mother, who met my grandfather (Sven Eriksson) when he was the ship’s captain. She was an avid photographer, author and traveler, who recorded her adventures in two books, “Out of the World” and “The Duchess”. The ship is a big part of our family history and was wrecked off the coast of Devon in 1939.