This week I wanted to paint these beautiful mini-purple roses I bought (thanks Valentines industry). It has been awhile since I’ve worked with flowers in watercolor so it seemed a worthwhile endeavor for this week’s effort.
I learned quickly that I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING… >.<
Have I just forgotten how to paint flowers!? I seem to recall being able to paint them… but then… maybe I’ve only ever painted them in gouache (which is very different) and drawn them with pen and ink? Whatever time I might have spent with flowers in watercolor in the past, it is certain that I never developed a unique style (how can that be!!!).
New goal – PAINT ALL THE FLOWERS!!! (And shells… or maybe flowers and shells?!)
So, yeah… this is what happened: I started out okay enough – I really enjoyed working from direct observation as opposed to a photograph as I have been doing more lately. I also used some of the new color mixtures I recently discovered in my efforts to create my own unique palette for watercolor. This was fun and felt like I’d really set myself up for success.
The first pass included some lovely lifting that worked quite well. I was getting excited.
But then I went and ruined it by overworking it to death.
While I love the negative painting and rich depths achieved in the negative space I feel like I lost the beautiful lightness of the flowers as a whole and didn’t plan out the composition well enough because the violet flower was very overwhelmed by the cooler colors in the study.The leaves don’t tick me off as much as the flower – just too dark, too quick. I made lots and lots of notes for my next attempts. I’m not giving up.
Next week? More flowers and some pen and ink drawings with light watercolor washes.
Cry The Bird 