More Floral Studies

I'm having a ball! The workshop I'm taking has energized me so much and has given me the chance to take some time off from two other large pieces that are taking much longer than I thought to finish. I have also been having fun preparing my own pastel surfaces with the colors I like.

The tulips were my first study from yesterday's workshop. I purposely used the busy fabric because the colors reflected those of the tulips and the vase, but also because I wanted to force myself not to give much detail to the background.

After the tulips, the daffodils seemed like a piece of cake but those flowers are difficult to paint if one starts with the brightest yellow. I had to tone them down by adding pale greens and lavender to the shaded areas.

Small Floral Studies

I'm taking a 3-Saturday floral workshop with Mary Padgett, a local artists who paints gorgeous flowers. While I have taken two other workshops with her before, this time around I wanted to concentrate on mark making and color.

One of the things we covered in the first class was the importance of the paper color to better enhance the subject. To that end we prepared several sheets of watercolor paper using Golden's Acrylic Ground for Pastels, mixed with acrylics or Micaceous Iron Oxide (this one produces a shiny, dark gray surface with great tooth). While the prepared paper was drying, I had time for two small studies, both done on Uart paper. The first one (top), was well thought, and I purposely didn't do any blending with my fingers. The second one (lilies) was more for the purpose of handling complementary colors, and it was done in a hurry.


Today, I painted two more, using two of the papers I prepared: orange for the sunflower, and yellow-orange for the daisies. Each was done in about half an hour. More time than that and I would have started blending. For next class, we were promised some spring flowers...