More Coneflower

I have been out of the studio for about a week.  I didn't really think I would be able to sit on the stool and paint an entire painting without my back erupting in pain.  Last night I ventured out, and the pain was manageable. So, with that in mind i started to dabble again.  This is the result.

Enjoy

Coneflower

I painted a few flowers on my lunch hour today.  They are just quick coneflower, not the most detailed, but for me, thats ok.  I want to give the essence of the flower, not an exact copy of it.  I think they look great and were a lot of fun to paint.  (yes, I realize I forgot the splatter on the first one.)

Hope you enjoy.  (oh, and you might see a video of a coneflower soon.)

Loose Red Flowers

This lovely little painting is the product of my video last night.  I sat down to just paint some random stuff and flowers popped out of the painting.   Ok, I knew I was going to paint flowers, I just didn't know what they were going to look like.

After dabbing some paint on the paper, and allowing it to dry a bit, this is what I got out.  Not too bad.  Looks like some flowers popping out of a little garden area.

More Bougainvillea

I know that I recently posted another bougainvillea, but they look so nice and add such a nice punch of color to my yard that I had to paint another.  There is a slight twist to this one.  I MADE A VIDEO ABOUT IT!!!

True story.  I have had several people ask me how I paint my flowers.  It seems that that is what people think I paint best.  So I finally did it,  I broke down and started filming.

Don't expect Scorsese quality filmography.  This is me were talking about after all. But I kinda had fun doing this, so I'll probably make a few more, and we'll see how it goes from there.

Hope you enjoy this flower,  I'll put up a post when the video is up and then the secret will be out.  LOL.  I'll keep you all informed

Bougainvillea

So you may have noticed that I took a little time off from painting.  Let me tell you why.  I hurt my back and its been hard to sit, stand, lay, move, hold still, etc.  I think you get the idea.  I've not felt like trudging out to the studio to do any painting.  What I've felt like is, well, horrible.

But on Friday, I started feeling a little better.  I made it out to the studio.  On the side of the driveway, next to the door to the garage, is a bougainvillea plant.  It's got these really nice magenta flowers on it.  I gave it a quick study and then off I went to give a try at painting it.  Actually I was trying to film it too, but that didn't go well.  (yes, you may see Dabfly Arts videos soon)  What I came up with, you see on the side.

I did it all with a number 2 paint brush and a couple of watercolor pencils.  I've been watching videos again (i know, that can be trouble) and found something that was mentioned in passing in several, but not highlighted in any.    If you hold your brush back past the bulge of the barrel, you can't paint with any real detail.  You are forced to think more about basic shapes.  You, unless you have the steady hands of a brain surgeon, won't be able to work in tiny little places and wont be able to put in tiny little details.  You'll be using a slightly larger muscle group and as such will only be able to make larger strokes.  The thinking is that if you can only make larger strokes, you will force yourself to try to reduce whatever it is you are painting into its basic elements and only paint them.

I tried that with these.  What I got was, ... , well, kind of a mess, but kind of really nice.  I can see how holding your brush so far back changes how you paint.   I think I'll explore this a little further.

Oh, and I guess I should mention that I did add a few details with a watercolor pencil.

Thanks for the view, hope you enjoyed it.

More Hydrangea

Well, I wanted to paint hydrangea again.  I don't know why I like it so much.  Maybe it has to do with the huge hydrangea at the end of my driveway at the house I grew up in.  My brother and a I made a fort inside it, and we were able to stand up without obstruction.  That just shows how big it was.  Like I said, huge.

For this painting, I decided to embrace hard edges.  I've painted hydrangea before and kind of muddled all the edges and made it all soft.  I've been trying to accept that I cant always stop hard edges, so I jumped in and went for all the hard edges I could get.

After drawing my little clump of flowers, I thought it would be cool to paint all at the top level and make the paint drip.  Then walk away so that it dries.  Coming back when it was totally dry, I started on the next set of petals.  Painting right over the drips from the layer above, I didn't even try to erase the lines.  I just kept repeating that until I got to the bottom.

I learned a few interesting thing.  First and foremost, when you want your paint to run, you almost can't do it. secondly, the addition of water at just the right time will lighten just enough of your painting to give some cool effects.  Of course you might want to sop up the extra instead of forcing a run.

I was also hoping to limit my palette.  Something I am always trying to do.  In the effort,  I made it look awfully monotone.  I did actually find a way to use two colors.

Hope you enjoy it,   I sure did.  Thanks for the view.

More Hydrangea

In a quick painting session I had with my daughter, I painted a few hydrangea.  I didn't have long, as her attention span yesterday seemed to last only about 5 minutes on any one thing.

I actually got about 10 minutes out of her, but I was the one who had about 5 after getting paint, paper, water, and towel to paint with, then cleaning up after she was done.

Well, we did have a good time while it lasted.  Too bad it was such a short amount of time.

Some Kind of Red Flower

Just playing around last night.  I thought this turned out nice.  Some flowers of undetermined species.

Got the whole paper wet, and threw down some red, blue, yellow and green.  Then when it dried I put in a little red to bring the petals to the foreground.   After allowing those to dry, went back and drew in the stamen and leaf edges.  A little water to tone them down and voila.

It turned out to be exactly what I wanted.  A loose painting of some flowers.  Done quickly, but with enough interest that it's enjoyable to look at.

Hope you enjoy it.  

Purple Potted Flowers

So while a had a little time off yesterday, I was able to paint this.  I've a friend who paints these unbelievable painting in this loose style that I like so much.  I asked if I could use her paintings as a guide while I'm learning and she agreed.  Mine are no where as good as hers, but I like mine none the less.

So this one is a potted purple plant.  I don't really know what plant it is, and I don't think it really matters.   Looking at it you can just see that the sun must come in from the other side  The plant is growing more away from us than toward us, but looking at it from this direction, we can see the pot.

well, thats all for now. Hope yo u like this little painting.  I had fun painting it.

A Rose is A Rose is A Rose

A nice loose rose for the weekend.  I had a little spare time and I decided to paint a few things.  You can see a painting so close to this that I couldn't crop it out.

I don't know if I like painting flowers or if I think I am good at painting flowers, but.... since I think I do them better than most other things I paint, I just keep bringing them.

Not sure I totally got the top of this, where the petals open up.  But  I'm not sure it really distracts from the overall painting too much.   There is just enough going on to make you a little distracted.

Actually, I bet you look right at the middle of the painting more than anywhere else.  I put in just a bit of yellow to warm up the painting in the very center.  It really does make your eyes kind of hang out there.

Anyone else notice this?

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

Rose Madder

It's been a little while since I made a post and I don't want it to go too long without putting one up.  I've been somewhat tired, and somewhat working on different projects (damn life getting in the way of my painting).  I did manage to get up a little gumption tonight and paint a few flowers for you all.

I'm constantly told that I do a really good job painting my flowers.  I think it is because I really enjoy painting them.  Flowers don't have a right or wrong.  They are roundish and if you give an indication of petals, people believe they are flowers.  It is true that some look more realistic, and some less, but everyone agrees that they look like what I paint.  In this case its a few roses.  Maybe they look like other flowers too, but because you've read that these are roses, they will always look like roses to you.

Well, anyway, enjoy the roses, and thanks for taking a minute to read this blog.

Struggling

Last night I was really struggling.  I wanted to paint.  I really did.  I painted about 6 paintings, but no matter what I did, the picture that ended up on the paper in no way resembled what was in my head.  I just couldn't get things to work out.  These two are the best I could muster.

I'm always flummoxed when something like that happens.  Do I keep painting, and power through in hopes that at some point though out the night my my paintings will get better?  Or do I pack it in for the night, and try again the next day?

I guess I chose to power through and see what I could muster up.  I don't think its anywhere near my best stuff.    

Expect to see a better product nest time you check back.

More Practice

Just a little bit of sketching from last night.  I really do think that I am mastering the roses.  Now I just need to master the leaves.  And a few more poppies.

Hope you like them.

A Bit of Hydrangea

Here is a painting I was having fun with last night.  Its a bit of Hydrangea.  It looks similar to my other flower paintings with one real difference.  The petals on the top of this painting are painted in positive.  Then, I began to work my way down the paper and the petals on the bottom are completely in negative.

It's an interesting way to paint, and I think I'll keep trying this.

Also I was kinda painting this from memory, knowing that hydrangea are just 4 diamond shaped petals.  I didn't really know what the center of the flower looked like, so I dropped a little yellow in the middle.  Now I know that there is a little button in the middle of the 4 petals.  Hmmmm, well, I guess I have something to work on tonight.

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think, and thanks for taking the time to look.

Solitary Cone Flower

So I had a little time while I was waiting for my paint to dry on different painting and I thought I would just get a little more wet int wet practice.

A really simple, but somehow nice coneflower.  I know its nothing special, but somehow being simple makes it nice.

simple coneflowers

So I was doing some doodling again last night.  Thought it would be fun to paint some coneflowers.  Before you begin, let me say that I didn't really look at any pictures of coneflowers to know if I've done it right.  And I know they have many more petals than these have.  And I know that the stems here are just green lines.  Blah Blah Blah.

Yes I should have done at least a tiny bit of research to know what I was painting, but these were kind of a throw in at the end of my painting session.  For what they are, I think they are pretty good.  I'll have to check to make sure these are actually colors that cone flowers come in, and probably change my color palette for my next attempt.  Also, I'll have to find what the stems and leaves look like.  Oh, and the heads too.  Whew, that seems like a lot of work all of a sudden.  Oh, well, for a quick painting at the end of the night, I think they turned out pretty good.   Thanks for taking the time to look.

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.