We had a lovely day out yesterday at the Usk reservoir near our home in Carmarthenshire. I don’t do enough sketching outdoors and really enjoyed. It was a sunny day……not too hot and Chris caught a trout which was a bonus. It’s good fishing there but like most places the water level was very low and the fish down deep.

More and more I am enjoying painting in a loose style, whether landscape or flowers. Over the last couple of days I have had a go at painting cornflowers. I think it is important to firstly get a good understanding of the structure of the flowers that you want to paint. It will mean that you will not be referring to references as you are painting which will certainly free up your painting style.

I know people can have trouble working wet into wet especially when it comes to adding darks. This little study will show you how I generally work this technique and I hope it helps if you are struggling. Lots of pink flowers in the grasses on my dog walk at the moment and this is the subject of the painting.