The Potting Table

Tidying the  Potting Table

I was cleaning up on this potting table, tidying up and rearranging pots. I stepped back and saw that I had inadvertently created a rather nice arrangement by adding a rather weedy sunflower and a white begonia.

For some reason, I decided that the composition lent itself to watercolours. I think that there was a luminosity to the arrangement that watercolour might render better than acrylics. Choice of medium is sometimes difficult and arbitrary. At other times that choice seems obvious, and such was the case here. With this kind of painting, there is always a dance between detail and ambition. This was about the light on and through the leaves, the delicate greens that make me feel thirsty. But without detail, it is difficult to see determine the subject.

A happy accident with the Potting Table

I got forgetful towards the end of painting and thought I was working with acrylics. I took a wide brush and swept some paint across for sunbeams. The paint was a little thick so I rubbed a moist paper towel across it. Being watercolour, the layers underneath were lifted partially. Happily, the painting wasn’t ruined.

I have no idea what the variety of dwarf sunflower on the potting table is. The photos here look similar, but the variety is not given.

You may also like these Coneflowers, these Nasturtiums after the rain – or perhaps this white begonia.