Yesterday we went to Diergaarde Blijdorp for a visit to the animals and of course the flowers, trees and other plants, as this zoo is also a botanical garden. We are not often there in summer, but there had been a lockdown so we could not visit earlier in the year.
Of course we enjoyed the animals but we also needed a drink so we sat down on a terrace in the shade of a large parasol with a cup of tea.
In a corner of the terrace were some pots with Sacred Lotus (according to the information sign), mostly leaves and one large flower bud. Even though it was at a small distance, the flower bud and the leaves were clearly visible and I sketched them while waiting for the tea to turn cold enough to drink it.
Today I wanted to paint from my sketch, while the colours were still fresh in my memory and I decided to make a 'white on black' painting, using white gouache mixed with watercolour paints to paint the Lotus plant.
The flower bud was bright green and light yellow, so that was easy to paint, layering gouache that was lightly tinted with watercolour paint. The leaves are a dark green, with shadows and these were not as easy. After one layer of tinted gouache I had to use only dark watercolour paint and that does not build up very well on black cardboard. In the end I used my watercolour pencils on the dried paint to suggest the cup - like shape of the leaves. These pencil marks are dry and do not mix with previous layers so that worked as I hoped it would.
The information about the materials I have used, the size of this work, its price and availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.
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