15 x 22 watercolor on arches
Start this painting with a nice loose drawing of the flowers trying to get an interesting movement of the flowers across the paper
use a nice contour line drawing and get some really unique expressive flowers.
add some raw sienna, cerulean blue and cobalt violet to the shadow sides of the flowers.
continue putting color on the shadow side of the flowers. I have invented where I think the light is coming from.
continue working the warm cool colors into the flowers leaving white paper for the light areas.
work greens around the flowers using mixtures of New Gamboge, Cobalt Blue, and Skips Green. Stay loose during this phase or the flowers will become stiff and lifeless.
Keep varying your green mixture between warm and cool by adjusting the yellow and blue keep the changing minor but noticeable
Add texture using a nice round brush use a mixture of darker greens add leaf marks and the occasional splatter to give the painting the excited look. Push in some dark accents into the greens the really bring out the flowers.
Pretty much finished with the flowers but I feel like something is missing. I decide to paint the bottom of the painting yellow with Raw Sienna which gives the feeling of a yard behind the flowers and it gives the painting a sense of place.
I think this works pretty well for an invented scene I made up the flowers from memory and I just tried to create a lively and colorful painting. Give it a try .
I think that it helps that the memories might have been a beautiful day at Merry Spring in Camden, Maine, and the flowers were spectacular. Your memory served you well and the painting is beautiful!