Skillshare – Two Month Free Trial

As mentioned in a previous post I have been watching a lot of classes on Skillshare the past few months, one of those was Line Drawing: Cactus & Succulent Edition by Peggy Dean.

My sketches were a little dodgy due to my ongoing shoulder problem, but overall it was being pretty good that day and I felt the urge to try and do better than my sketches and do a watercolour cactus.

My slightly dodgy sketches with even dodgier writing.

Out of all the various types I chose to try painting the Hedge Cactus.

There was a heatwave going on at the time I painted this so the paint was drying really fast, I mixed my colours in my ceramic palette but the water was evaporating out of them faster than I could paint, on the other hand the speed of the paint drying on the paper gave a nice texture to the cactus itself I felt.

 

I’m still a watercolour novice but I was happy with how this turned out, I was very pleased with the colours and kept my little paper swatch for future reference.

 

I used my Winsor & Newton Cotman set for this, I’ll list the mixes below because my writing is once again a bit scribbly.

Green: Hookers Green Dark, Yellow Ochre and a touch of Payne’s Gray.

Terracotta: Indian Red and Yellow Ochre

Turquoise: Intense Blue (Phthalo Blue), Emerald and a touch of Payne’s Gray

Orange: Permanent Rose, Cadmium Yellow and a touch of Payne’s Gray

If I could change anything I think it would be the design on the pot, I didn’t plan it out and as you can see it is not like the sketch I did before, but once I had started inking I was stuck with it.

I enjoyed Peggy’s lesson a lot, it was very informative and I had a lot of fun doing the painting. I also learned the names of some of the cacti I used to keep as a teenager, I haven’t kept any in years but back then I had a bit of a thing for them which was considered an oddity at the time, unlike now where cacti are everywhere.