Mental Health & Wellbeing, Tuition

Art & Mindfulness: Tortoiseshell Butterfly in Watercolour | Ali Hargreaves

From Paint & Create September 2018, the magazine of the SAA

Ali Hargreaves saw a Tortoiseshell butterfly in her garden and felt compelled to get her SAA watercolours out and paint it, while reflecting on art and mindfulness

Mindfulness is a topical subject at the moment. There are lots of different takes on it, but for me, it’s about how painting can help us feel good. Professor Mark Williams (former director of Oxford Mindfulness Centre) says, “An important part of mindfulness means waking up to the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the present moment.” Being a good observer massively aids us as artists and using every sense that we have can enhance our art.
Just sitting in my garden, I can see the brightly coloured intricate patterns on a flower, smell the heavy fragrances in the air, hear the birds singing and the bees buzzing. I can reach over, pick a ripe strawberry and taste the sweetness. How lucky am I? Even better, I can choose to paint it! Here is how I painted a Tortoiseshell butterfly on my buddleia.
I have used the new SAA watercolours, which include some of my favourite ‘feel good’ SAA colours. They really are fabulous. When working with my students in my classes, or in my studio, I work with tubes as I like strong colour and can get far more colour mixed up that way for larger paintings.

Ali is a popular SAA artist, known for her vibrant artwork and thorough teaching style. If you’re ready to learn everything from the basics upward, Ali is hosting a mixed media workshop at SAA HQ in Newark-On-Trent on Thursday 29th May, and we’d love for you to join us!
Get your workshop ticket

Materials

• Surface:
• Bockingford NOT watercolour paper
  
  
• Paint and Colour:
• SAA Watercolours:
• Quinacridone Magenta
• Scarlet Lake
• Cadmium Orange
• Aureolin
• Tropical Phthalo Blue
  
  
• Brushes and Tools:
• SAA Silver size 6 Worker brush
• SAA Silver size 16 Wash brush
  
  
• Also:
• SAA Blue masking fluid
• SAA Maskaway
• SAA Masking Fluid brushes
• Sharp pencil

Shop SAA Watercolours

Step 1 & 2

Draw the butterfly and buddleia lightly with a pencil. Using your size 6 brush, paint the blue markings on the back wings with a light wash of Tropical Phthalo Blue and wait to dry. Then, use masking fluid to mask out these, together with the feelers and outline of the butterfly.

Step 3

While it’s drying, experiment mixing the colours straight onto the paper. Try mixing Tropical Phthalo Blue and Cadmium Orange to make browns… vary the amounts of the two colours to produce different versions and add more and less water to vary the tones. Try making a very dark purple by mixing the colours Tropical Phthalo Blue and Quinacridone Magenta and then adding more water to see the purples made. Mix the Scarlet Lake and Aureolin together to make the reddy oranges of the wings.

 

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