Sometimes its nice to play with light and shade, exploring shapes and negative shapes, and this painting is one of those.
I wanted to capture the way that lily pads on a pond catch the late afternoon low sunlight, and float on the surface of dark waters below, so I masked off the areas that I wanted to keep white in the water, the lily pads, the clear sky reflected, and the gentle ripples. I painted the pink iris’s and their pale long leaves, and the hint of dark foliage behind them.  Then I could apply the wet watercolour paint to wet paper adding depths to the darks of the water and picking up the reflections of the flowers and foliage above. To add to the feeling of luminosity within the waters I used irredescent medium and also used it to pick up the light again on the flower heads. The darks within the picture are there to accentuate the lights, and add to the balance of colours.  The painting is called “Lily pad loyalties” and is a celebration of light and shade, water and the life within it and on it.