Now I am really hooked – been drawing more mushrooms this morning and painting their fragile, pulpy yet paper fibrous stalks – love them – so tactile and cute.
I love their random nobbliness and charm – carefree and child-like.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here’s how I did them.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Paper is Arches Hot Pressed 90lbs. Unstretched as you can see.
I just paint on the paper and flatten it later.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Paints Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Scarlet, Chrome Orange, Cadmium Yellow, French Ultramarine, Sap Green, Cerulean Blue. Brushes No. 3 round.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1. I drew the mushrooms roughly in pencil 3B
2. I wet the entire surface (apart from some teeny dry specks which will be the white bits later) of some heads of mushrooms and added Alizarin Crimson/Cadmium Red here and there and  let it run. I added a deeper mix of this colour on shadow sides of heads to start creating form. The shadow sides I have created are all on the left of the mushrooms.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I drew another single mushroom as a more detailed study and here you can see the wetness of the head ready to be charged with red paint.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Let the medium do it !

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
OK – back to out happy grouping…

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Now I darken areas of the heads with a deeper red mix.
I also felt the painting was looking overall too cool and not appealing so I added a splash of Cadmium Yellow and Chrome Orange to the Left hand side of some of the mushroom heads and stalks  to bring in some sunshine:)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Add some sap green to darken the red  off.

Then I wet the entire stalks and added a thin line of grey made from French Ultramarine and Sap Green along the Right hand side and let it run into the wet part.
This creates a curved illusion on the stalks.
 
 
So this is where I am going to stop now as I need a cup of tea and the Jack Russells are getting restless!
Back to continue soon. I hope you found this interesting /useful? Any comments pop them below:)
Alison