Flowers

     Flowers beautiful flowers. They may be painted in detail, as abstract, representational or realistically amongst a landscape. As always, composition is the first thing to think about.
     Last Saturday I demonstrated painting flowers with both watercolors and acrylics.
     First, a brief overview of the parts of a flower. After years of painting, I feel it helps to know what types of petals, leaves, stems and stamens I am dealing with. That way, even though I may not see everything, I know the basic shape to depict.
     I showed the class my favorite flower book, "Rocky Mountain Wildflowers," pocket guide by David Dahms. This great flower guide travels in my backpack on all hikes. I refer to it when painting. I also shared a handful of wildflower photos I have taken.
     I had prepared a canvas for the acrylics with varied background shades ranging from a neutral grey to a peachy-pink-orange. I started painting by blocking out shapes of some cut flowers I brought - pink carnations, blue-violet stock and white daisy mums. On the canvas, I sketched the outline of the flower bunches using a pastel pencil which will disappear as I paint over it. 
     On the watercolor paper, I sketched in pen.  Then I filled in the background with a complimentary or analogous color. Yellow for the purple stock and a grey green for the white mums.
     I quickly and briefly showed a couple brush techniques - one using acrylics, dipping one side of a flat brush in one color of paint and the other side in another color, then make a beautiful whoosh for a petal, leaving those delicate lines of depth and color. Kind of like frosting a cake using 2 colors of icing in the pastry bag.
     I also created highlights on the purple stock using a very very light yellowish tint. Again with the complimentary colors. How very useful.
     All depending on what the end result is to be.
for the whitel mums I painted with a light black (grey) wash and barely yellowish green tint.
     For a landscape, the colors can just be dabbed and dotted. For a close-up still life, details, light and shadows are key.

     An abstract can be an exaggeration of all of the above.
     Flowers are versatile and always pleasing. Get out the paints. Enjoy the creative process.