Cherry Blossom article out now

In 2014 I made it onto the cover (well my hand and painting did!) of Artists Illustrators Magazine.

Inside is my Step-by-Step article showing you how to paint this Cherry Blossom in 18 steps.

As ever, it’s all about juggling tones and gradually building up your colours.

White flowers have a narrow tonal range themselves. By this I mean that the gap between their lightest tones (pure white) and darkest tones (pale grey) is pretty small. So it can be really easy to take them too dark, or leave them too light. To give ourselves the best chance of getting it right, we need to work on the very darkest tone part of our composition first – the leaves. With these dark greens in place, it’s far easier to judge how dark the light petal tones should be.

The magazine is available at all main newsagents in the UK, and you can buy it online here.<