Category: Flower Art

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Art theory Flower Art Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Baby Hydrangea: Little Pitchers Have Big Ears

Baby Hydrangea, oil on panel, 6x6"
Baby Hydrangea, oil on panel, 6x6"

I’d heard that saying before, “Little Pitchers Have Big Ears,” but without giving it any real consideration, assumed it had something to do with Little League baseball pitchers. Wrong. According to The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, “Adults must be careful about what they say within the hearing of children. The saying refers to the large handles (ears) sometimes attached to small vessels…” like this little pitcher.

My other reference for the saying is the refrain in John Prine’s touching song, “Sam Stone” about a Viet Nam vet returning home.

Hydrangea and pitcher preliminary sketches
Hydrangea and pitcher preliminary sketches

I was looking for flowers to paint and this little lavender hydrangea was hiding at the bottom of the bush all by itself. I did the value/composition sketches above and set about painting, completely forgetting the first step that I usually find helpful: doing a quick and simple 2-value block in using thinned paint in one color (usually Ultramarine Blue) first.

I think it worked out OK anyway, and in the next painting I did (still waiting to get photographed) I remembered to do that.

Categories
Art theory Flower Art Oil Painting Painting photoshop Rose

White Roses in Creamery Bottle (and painting process stuff)

White Roses in Creamery Bottle, oil on linen, 8x8"
White Roses in Creamery Bottle, oil on linen, 8x8"

(Available)

Strauss Family Creamery is a Marin County dairy that produces organic dairy products served in old-fashioned glass bottles from happy cows that graze on sweet grass in the hills by the sea. I enjoy their bottles as much as their cream in my coffee.

I started this painting with a goal to complete it from life in one 3-hour session, as so many plein air artists and daily painters do. I had somehow come to believe that I “should” be painting that way too. But while I met my time goal, I didn’t like the results (see original version below). And that’s when I finally accepted that it’s better to take as much time as a painting needs, and relax and enjoy the process rather than try to rush to keep up with someone else’s “rules.”

If you’re interested in seeing how I got here from there, click “keep reading” and stick around.

Continue reading “White Roses in Creamery Bottle (and painting process stuff)”
Categories
Art supplies Bookbinding Drawing Faces Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Painting People Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages

End of Sketchbook Self-Portrait with Birthday Flowers

Birthday Flowers Self Portrait, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Birthday Flowers Self Portrait, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

To put the finishing touches on a completed journal, I make a self-portrait for the last page. Since it was also my birthday, I wanted to incorporate my birthday flowers in the painting. So I hung a mirror with a yellow clip  from one of my swing-arm lamps on my drawing table and put the vase of sunflowers between me and the mirror and then drew what I could see in front of me: the flowers in front of the mirror, with me and the flowers reflected in the mirror.

As usual for my end-of-journal self-portraits, I wasn’t willing to measure or try to draw and place features accurately but I think I did capture the feeling of me or the me as I was feeling.

In the next post I’ll show you my new journal and another idea I tried out for sketchbooking minus the sketchbook.

 

Categories
Building Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Sketching Ikuko’s Garden

Ikuko's Garden, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Ikuko's Garden, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

My friend Ikuko invited our Tuesday night sketching group to sketch in her lovely and lovingly tended garden. I picked a spot that was still in the last bit of sun and sat in a lawn chair to sketch and relax. For a change I tried to just be loose and free and it was really fun.

Ikuko's at Sunset, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Ikuko's at Sunset, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

I was interested in all of the odd contraptions on top of her fireplace and the glowing light of the sunset on the bricks and the windows. I managed to fit almost everything I wanted on the page (with a little rearranging from real life; the mail box was below the frame but I liked it so stuck it in.) I was a little annoyed when I finished the sketch that I’d “messed up” the house numbers (the 2 is too big) but a week later, who cares!

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Relaxing With Calla Lillies

Calla Lilly 1, Ink and watercolor
Calla Lilly 1, Ink and watercolor

After a weekend of making paintings, scraping the canvas and starting over (with nothing to show for it but some learning) I accidentally knocked a 12 oz latte off the table, splattering the studio with milky coffee, requiring a major cleanup job. So tonight I thought it might be nice to stare at a pretty calla lilly that popped up in the garden, sketch it a couple of times and just calm down.

I drew the one above first, starting with a little pencil to get the shape right and then drawing with a Micron .03. When I finished I wished I’d skipped the ink.

Calla Lilly 2, ink & watercolor
Calla Lilly 2, ink & watercolor

With this second one I drew directly with the pen, but I liked the scratchy line even less (I think the pen is running low on ink or doesn’t like the paper) so went over it with a Pentel Brush Pen afterwards.

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Painting Rose Sketchbook Pages Still Life

The First Cut is the Deepest (Or Is It The Sweetest?)

First Cut Rose, gold gel pen and watercolor
First Cut Rose, gold gel pen and watercolor

This was the first rose I cut from my rose bushes this year which led to the first cut on my hands from the rose thorns (likely not the last). And it was the first sketch I did of the first rose.  My intention was get the essence of the delicate rose with as few lines and as few washes as possible. I drew it with a gold gel pen, painted directly in one layer and stopped.

Happy!

Categories
Berkeley Drawing Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Painting Places

Wisteria Hysteria in Berkeley

Cathy's Wisteria, ink & watercolor
Cathy's Wisteria, ink & watercolor

It’s become an annual tradition for our sketch group that when Cathy’s wisteria explodes into bloom she invites us to spend the evening in her serene Berkeley backyard garden sketching and painting. This year it was a cool, foggy evening so we bundled up and drew until our fingers were too cold and the light was gone.

Wisteria close up, ink & watercolor
Wisteria close up, ink & watercolor

Then we went indoors and shared our work while snacking on ginger cookies and pistachios.

Our excellent online Berkeley newspaper, Berkeleyside, published this wonderful photo essay “The Hanging Gardens of Berkeley” with pictures of wisteria in brilliant bloom all over Berkeley, in some cases completely hiding the buildings.

Sharing art with other sites is fun (and as it turns out profitable). Berkeleyside features my sketches of Berkeley from time to time (linked here) and I’m always honored when they do. Then a few months ago a natural foods specialist asked if she could use some of my paintings on her website. I’m glad I said yes. One of her readers just bought three of those paintings. It’s good to share!

Categories
Flower Art Glass Oil Painting Painting Rose Still Life

Roses Requiring Reverence (or at least to be painted)

Rose Reverence, oil on Gessobord panel, 10x10"
Rose Reverence, oil on Gessobord panel, 10x10" - SOLD

My riotously rampant roses were bursting forth from their bushes so I had to put other plans aside and paint them. Their fruity scent was as intoxicating as their vibrant colors. These were two different kinds of roses, both of which change colors and shape as they open so I had to work quickly to complete this painting in one session.

I left the still life set up just in case I needed to fix anything the next morning. But of course by then they were completely different roses. And the painting was complete.

Categories
Drawing Flower Art Gardening Ink and watercolor wash Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plants Sketchbook Pages

A Bit of Spring Before Thunder and Lightening

Calla Lillies, ink & watercolor
Calla Lillies, ink & watercolor

Tonight it is thundering and lightening and pouring down buckets of rain. But there was a warm sunny day last week when I was able get out in the garden and sketch a bit. Callas are so graceful and such lovely volunteers, popping up all on their own wherever they please.

 

My tiny fig tree, ink & watercolor
My tiny fig tree, ink & watercolor

 

Just after my friend Barbara finished writing her book about growing fruit trees and delivered the manuscript to the publisher, she also delivered to me a baby fig tree that she couldn’t find a space for her in garden.

I was so excited to see that my new baby tree made it through the worst of the winter and was no longer just a stick. It now has actual leaves sprouting from the tip. In case you can’t tell from my sketchy drawing, those are random rocks and bricks I placed around the baby tree as a warning to the gardeners so they wouldn’t mow over it.

Categories
Book review Flower Art Painting Published work Watercolor

“How to Paint Watercolor Flowers” (I’m in the book)

How to paint watercolor flowers: Create Your Own Masterpiece in 6 Easy Steps
My work in the book: How to Paint Watercolor Flowers

A year ago the English publisher Quarto commissioned me to do a series of paintings for a book (working title) “Must Paint Watercolor Flowers” and at last it arrived in the mail! Now named How to Paint Watercolor Flowers: Create Your Own Masterpiece in 6 Easy Steps, it features my paintings and those of 15 other artists, along with step-by-step instructions showing how we made our paintings.

The book has 160 pages and at 11″x 9.5″ is much bigger than their “Watercolor Artist’s Bible” in which I also had several paintings. It is laid out with a beautiful 8×10 photo of the flower subject on the left side and photo-illustrated step-by-step instructions for creating the finished watercolor beside it. Hard-cover spiral binding allows the book to lay open flat for artists who wish to try the techniques while painting from the photos.

I loved seeing the beautiful work of the other artists and the many ways they approached the wide variety of subjects and techniques. The flower photos are superb, with permission granted to use them for your own paintings. The book also has excellent sections on watercolor technique, color, value, and photographing your own flowers for painting.

I haven’t read all the step-by-steps, but I’m guessing that like me, few of the artists actually created their work in just the six steps that we were limited to when writing up and photographing our work. Instead the editor highlights the key techniques that were especially important to each particular painting.

If you’d like to see my work in the book with more steps than were published (on pages 41, 65, 131), you can see them on my blog (Sunny Serenade Part I, Part II, Part III; Pink Orchid, Becoming Begonias).

Disclaimer: I have no financial investment in the book; I was paid per painting for the publisher’s right to print my work, but receive no royalties or other benefit from sales of the book itself from the publisher or via Amazon links.