Hellebores R Us!

Going on to look at white hellebores with the weekly class groups now.  These lovely nodding creamy coloured flowers are still showing up well in the garden and I continue to find them fascinating with their busy pale yellow stamens set off by dark crimson blotches inside the flower.  It's remarkable how non gardening people don't know about Hellebores, I suppose because they are not available to buy as cut flowers from florist shops.  So if you don't have a perennial border in your garden then it's quite possible to remain blissfully ignorant of their existence.

We did some sketching with different media, watercolour crayons, fineliner pens and watercolour washes from real examples last Wednesday just to have a good look at the flower and its structure.

I singled out one hellebore and cropped a photo so as to do a close in flower portrait.

I liked the shadowy interior of the flower and the contrasting white petal edges.  I thought this would look good with a dark background to make the flower look sunlit, which is my favourite effect to try and capture.

Here's my version, a small painting done as a study but, I hope, with plenty of impact.

White hellebore. Watercolour by Ann Mortimer