My plan was to actually do some botanical studies so that I could begin to learn the shape for when I would paint in my own style. I find that if you know and understand the shape of the flower you want to paint you can then get a sort of template in your mind, which is a way of painting it that works for you. I have my template with flowers like roses (learned from the Jean Haines way of painting them), pinks and carnations, hydrangeas, daisies, daffodils, gerberas, snowdrops etc and what you have to do is find the essence which makes it that particular flower. So I was going to find it by doing a proper study.... yeah right!!!
I decided to start with one particular flower then forgot all my good intentions and the composition just seemed to grow and grow and before I knew it, I had filled a double page in my sketch book from top to bottom!!
Having said that I am really quite pleased with this as I love the colour combinations... all W&N, my lovely Turquoise, Permanent Rose and Green Gold. When you are painting white flowers, you don't need to keep all the flowers white in fact the painting won't work half as well as they will have a tendency to look stuck on to the bg. Though I drew this (don't forget I was meant to be doing a formal study as normally I don't draw flowers) I have still lost edges on the flower heads and leaves and this helps marry the flowers into the bg.
I started by adding the greens to the stems and leaves, losing quite a bit into the bg, and guiding the paint with water around the flower heads to keep them white. I also added the other colours to the bg and as the flower areas were dry the paint didn't flow (paint will only flow where it's wet.....you need the water to transport it) so the flowers in the main stayed white though I did wet small areas to allow some of the paint to flow in especially on the bottom sides.
Once you have reached this stage it is simply a matter of building up the bg, painting negatively and positively around the piece until it is time to step back and see if it's finished. This piece is approx 4x8 so not a normal size for me but I will use what I've learned from this to do a bigger painting and probably keep to the same colour scheme... let me know what you think!!
Love the color combination. Must try it. I usually use much darker colors. Need to get out of my comfort zone.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jean....I try to use bright colours though I always have one in the palette which will give me the full tonal range. I find UB, Prussian, Indigo, Burnt Umber, Alizarin Crimson, Purple and Turquoise will all give me that range so I invariably use at least one of them in my work.
Deletevery pretty and I like the portrait format I think they make interesting shapes on the wall to compliment other pieces love the colour scheme but there aren't many of yours I don't love think thats what I need to learn is not so much as DRAW THE SUBJECT but learn the essence of the shape in general I watched Alvaro draw a cow it looked very little like a cow till he fiddled with it a voila a cow appeared just a touch here of colour and highlight there is was very good in my opinion so I think its the next stage for me prompted by EXPERTS lol
ReplyDeleteYes good idea... it's like painting people in the bg... just paint a carrot, then add a small dot on the top slightly above so that you leave a gap, then you can just add an impression of some legs. All about impression not full study but as with the flowers you still need to get the proportions of head to body and body to legs right so you need to understand how the head goes into the body 7-8 times (for an adult, different for children)etc then you can give the right impression.....
DeleteI think it's really lovely and the colors are beautiful! I'm trying to use the same method of learning the flower so that I can get the idea in my head first, before I try to paint it loosely. The foliage of climbing roses is so challenging and I still haven't figured it out! I've thought about subscribing to Billy Showell's online tutorials to really learn flowers but I don't know if I've got that kind of discipline!
ReplyDeleteHi Jess... I wouldn't even try to represent all the foliage... just depict one or two with some positive and negative painting. The main issue when you are painting like this is having what you paint work composition wise so you need to step back and take your time to build the composition up ad with a climbing rose create a path from top to bottom which the eye will wander up and down... an "s" shape usually works well, hope that helps. Also I would concentrate on one flower type at a time so for example, work on roses, get the template for painting them, then you can play around with the composition and colour, try lots of studies different numbers and shapes of flowers, using buds, larger, smaller ones, once you are happy with roses move on to another type... hope that helps...
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