Too Red Poppies

Two things I really like.  One, for some reason, painting poppies. 2 painting where I don't have to stay in the lines.  This painting checked both those boxes for me.

I did one thing a bit different with these poppies that I didn't do with all my other paintings of this style.  Normally i'll start by putting down some color in the general shape of the flower, making sure that all the color flows from the bottom of the petals, and gets lighter and less intense as it goes up.  then I redefine the shape of the petal on a second layer of paint.

On this particular one, I didn't worry so much about keeping the bottoms intense.  I really let the paint and water go where it wanted to on the first layer.  As a result I got a fairly uniform layer of paint.  Albeit a layer that still had not a lot of shape or definition to it.  As before, I went back with a second layer and defined the petal edges.  The only difference is that on this one, I tried to then go back to the base of the petal and put in some intense red and let it diffuse to the now defined petal edge.

Not entirely sure I was successful.  But from looking at the picture, I wasn't completely unsuccessful either.   Enjoy.

Iris

Two quick iris tonight.  The first one on top is a 5 minute study.  Don't give yourself time to overthink what you are doing.  Just get your work on paper.   It makes me try to get to the essence of what I am painting very quickly.  There are some things I really like about this.  The yellow petals stand out quite a lot.  It's easy to see how defined they are, and the red/orange petals morph from the yellow.  I like the transition.  But..... Ugh!  that pencil line.  hmmm, well, it was a quick study,  I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself.

The second one, i really like with one glaring exception.  The yellow is so muted next to the red and the petals have almost no definition.  Ooops I guess that was two thing.  But I like the composition, and the flow in the second one.  I wanted the two flowers to almost meld into one across the painting and that is exactly what happened.  I drew a few veins in the petals, just enough that your eye will pick them up.  And look, no pencil lines.  I drew the petals with yellow and red watercolor pencils, and the stems and buds very lightly with a green one.  They washed away as soon as water went over them, but left enough for me to know what I was doing.

Wait, did I just say I knew what I was doing?  Ha, what a joke,  What I meant to say what that I did what I intended to do.  Which is distinctly different from knowing what to do.

Well at any rate, hope you all like them, and thanks for the read.  Enjoy

Hydrangea and Cherry Blossom at lunch

Spring has definitely sprung in my little part of California.  Everything is green, everything is growing, most things are in bloom.  It hit 80 here today!

Continuing on with my new fun painting style, I decided to revisit my cherry blossoms, and add a hydrangea.  I chose a simple cherry blossom.  Simple rounded petals, 5 to each bloom.  As for the Hydrangea:  4 petals, each diamond shaped.  Simple, right?  What could go wrong.  As it turns out, quite a lot.  But since I am trying to loosen up, I made an attempt to let mistakes go by the wayside and incorporate them into the final painting.  I don't know if you will even be able to pick them out.  I think probably I can pick them out because I painted them.  And if I hadn't mentioned it you wouldn't even know there were any mistakes.

Glad you could stop by to take a look at the pictures.  Hope you enjoyed the.  I thoroughly enjoyed painting them.

Oh, and sorry the pictures have a slight blue tint.  I don't have my scanner with me right now, and am sorely missing it.

Poppypalooza

I went home last night with the intent on painting some hydrangeas, and guess what happened... Poppies.  This time it was a little different painting from little pans (All I have at home is a small travel set of paints).  I wasn't sure if I would be able to make up enough wash to really work this style of painting.  Luckily, I found out I could.

Also, I should say, I wanted to paint yellow/orange poppies, but somewhere between palette and paper, my mind forgot, and I got these red ones.

I can't express how fun it is to paint these.  Most of my whole artistic (if you can call it that) career (part time dabbling with paint) I've been painting tight pictures, and it always bothered me that they didn't look like the pictures I was painting from, and they were rather lifeless.  Additionally, if I were to paint outside a line, or paint something wrong (whatever that is) it would make me nuts.  I could never figure how to let the water and paint do their own dance on the paper.  

Now with this style, I feel much freer to let the paint be the paint, the water be the medium to make the paint dance, and the paper to record it.  All I have to do it keep refilling the brush and move it to the paper every now and again.  I know these pictures aren't accurate representations of poppies (or whatever I'm painting).  But what I think I get is the expression of the poppy (or whatever I'm painting), or the feeling of, and that is what is important.

Anyway, I'm gonna keep along these lines for a while.  Don't expect me to be painting inside the lines.  I had fun painting this, hope you had fun looking and reading. Thank you and see you next post.

12 Poppies

I got a bit ambitious today and decided to do quite a few poppies. Why 12?  I have no idea.  I just kept getting paper out and painting.

The first two I drew so that I would know where the flowers would be.  Don't ask me which of the 4 paintings they are.  The next two I did freehand.  Again, I couldn't pick them out without looking closely at the paintings.

These are of course orange poppies.  I don't have orange in my palette, so I mixed Cad Yellow Medium with Scarlet Lake.  It really make a vibrant orange.

I don't know how far I'm gonna go with this technique, or with painting flowers, but for now, I'm having fun with it.

Hope you all enjoy.

Poppy Fields

Im not sure why I feel the need to paint flowers right now.  Perhaps it's the oncoming spring.  Perhaps its the vibrant colors.  Or, perhaps it's because I can paint simple flowers without having to struggle to draw something to paint.  (Honest Admission:  I am not good at drawing, and from time to time will trace my subjects onto paper and then paint them.   I am working on trying to draw better, but it is taking a while to get to a point I feel my drawing is acceptable.)    But for whatever reason, I thought I would try my hand at painting some poppies again.  I've tried poppies before, and though they are simple, mine never seemed to work out well.  But this time, I have forsaken trying to paint a literal interpretation of poppies, and gone for a much wilder interpretation.    The whole point of this exercise was to put paint to paper and make an image that gives the impression of a poppy without throwing a poppy in your face.

I definitely think I accomplished that.  While I think I got a few of the colors too dark in places, and perhaps should have had a  little cleaner rinse water to allow the paint to fade a bit more, I think I did a decent job.

Well, if nothing else, I'll have a nice spot of color on my walls.  Hope you enjoy viewing these as much as I enjoyed painting them. Thank you.