Fern Frond – painting in a quiet lane with partridges trundling by
From the sleepy lane a Fern Frond is today’s watercolour sketch. Capturing the unfurling of a Fern Frond was something I wanted to share. They create interesting shapes as they begin to grow.
There are plenty of Ferns that keep trying to emerge from the borders and the hedges, but I am constantly removing them. Don’t misunderstand me, I do enjoy them, but not randomly everywhere. There are plenty of them unfurling in the verges of our quiet, sleepy lane. So with pencil and sketch book in hand I observed and drew several, in various stages of growth. Finally I found one to paint, which had a great balance of furled and unfurled.
Fern painting process
First I started with a light pencil outline and hardly took the pencil off the paper. All the time observing the Fern, rather than the drawing.
Then I painted a yellow wash for the main stem. Then painted the Fronds with a light green watercolour mix, keeping the mix quite dry. The main stem of the is quite a vibrant yellow green, whereas the Fronds are a slightly more blue green tone. I then painted the lower half of the stem, using the light green wash. Then I added more blue watercolour pigment to the green mix for the next layer on the uncurled Fronds. I also used this darker green mix to brush along the lower edge of the stem.
Now I added a red watercolour pigment to the yellow watercolour palette for the orange tips of the curls and along the stems. Then I finally added more blue pigment to the green palette mix and used this mix to add overall definition to the Fern.
Overall this Fern Frond painting was quite fiddly to do, on a small sketch pad. I had to furiously keep brushing and mixing colours, but thankfully the lane remained quiet, except for the wildlife (a covey of Partridges trundled down the lane, for their usual morning visit to our garden).