My newest artwork

My paintings have always found a welcome home in my children’s homes. Sometimes I’ve had to borrow them back for an exhibition, but at least I have the assurance that the paintings are loved and in good homes. 

Recently my son and his wife asked me to design a wallpaper for their living room, and they wanted the theme to feature aloes. Warren has a large collection in his garden and in fact a couple of these in the design are from photos I have taken there. 

This week the wallpaper was installed on the living room wall. Needless to say, I am delighted with the result. 

Ink drawings 

Each of the aloes were drawn in first in ink on paper then scanned and uploaded to Procreate.

Planning 

The initial sketch inserted into the photo of the living room...

First draft

The DPI at 300 was too low for a print of this size and I was dissatisfied with the large tree aloe on the right so it was back to the drawing board. The texture in the landscape was also competing with the aloes so thanks to the layers in Procreate I could eliminate the background and start over.

Look - no landscape!

 I set up a new canvas with a resolution of 600 DPI and drew a completely new tree aloe.  The landscape was added back but kept soft and unobtrusive.

Here’s the completed project installed. 

I have put a short story on my Instagram page with more photos and a short video showing the installation. 

Here’s a link: 

Instagram page