Saturday 21 June 2014

Colour from the Season - Gorse yellow

In Spring, Exmoor and the North Devon cliff paths are ablaze with the uplifting yellow of Gorse but lucky for me, it continues to flower throughout the year. As the old saying goes..."When the Whins (Gorse) are out of bloom, kissing's out of fashion".

I loved drawing this Gorse, I'd felt dispirited for a couple of days and drawing such a intricately detailed shrub was daunting. Once I started I drew for about 6hrs (with quite a break in the middle). After about two hours, I noticed that I was feeling loads better - spirited again! Complicated as it was, it had forced my thoughts to focus only on the matter in hand, and there was no place there for anything else - amazing.

Vivid yellow flowers offset against black seedpods, (which appear grey, because they are covered with downy white fur), vicious spikes when you get too close and a sweet coconut fragrance...



















































..from my seasonal colour sample notebook.