After twice starting and wiping off an oil painting of these Gerbera daisies, I switched to studies in ink and watercolor to understand them better. The sketch above is my 4th attempt and below are all four sketches in reverse order.
Tag: Flower Art
This was one of my favorites of all the wildflowers (see previous post for the wildflowers’ back story, which had such a variety of parts, from the pea-like pods to its spiky green leaves, plus I love purple.
Another curious plant with a variety of features and quite vibrant in color.
Here it is above in real life (though a bit blurry) with its portrait.
These were very delicate.
I had to take an allergy pill halfway through the day because all the wildflowers were making me sneeze.
The first attempt at the poppies above came out nice and fresh but my pen was running out of ink so I drew over the lines with another pen and then wasn’t crazy about the composition so I sketched them again (below).
I liked the composition better. Since this is our California state flower, it deserved an encore anyway. If you know the names of any of the flowers, let me know and I’ll update the captions.
Just days before the city mowed down all the “dangerous” wildflowers on Carlson Boulevard for the second time, finally killing them, I walked along the narrow median strip with cars zooming by, and snipped specimens of each to paint. (I previously wrote here about why they were dangerous. They grew back after that first trimming.)
I took them home and went wild, putting them in pretty bottles and vases, then sketching and painting them all day long.
My goal was to make free and fresh sketches of each flower that captured its personality while keeping composition in mind.
I postponed posting because of the time it would take to prepare the many sketches, scans and photos from that glorious day. I finally made the time; I didn’t want to be posting spring wildflowers in the Fall!
Do you know the names of any of these flowers? If you do, please leave a comment and tell me and I’ll change the captions with the correct names.
There are many more wildflower sketches to come, which I will post in Part 2.
A couple of years ago my mom and I had one of those conversations that goes something like this…
Mom: “You know those flowers that are big and fluffy and round…”
Me: “Uh, no.”
Mom: “You know! One of your neighbors had some that we saw when we walked by once.”
Me: “Do you mean the ones that we always called “popcorn ball flowers” and that I can never remember the real name of?” (referring to Hydrangea).
Mom: “No, ugh, I can’t remember what they’re called but they’re really pretty…”
Me: “Sorry. I have no idea.”
Mom: “Well anyway, I was thinking you should paint some.”
Two months later the phone rings:
Me: “Hello.”
Mom: “PEONIES! That’s what they were! You should paint some.”
While I’d often admired them in paintings, I’d never actually seen them in real life. So when Trader Joes had them in their flower stand I brought some home to paint. This nifty copper pitcher came from my mom’s collection of interesting objects.
I made a good start on the pitcher but as I began painting the flowers, life intervened. I broke the “rule” for painting from life: always start with the thing most likely to move, fade or rot (which wouldn’t be the pitcher). So by the time I returned to the studio, the flowers had lost some of their fluffy peony-ness and were looking more like roses. But they hung on long enough for me to finish the painting.
Now I keep watching flower stands hoping to find more peonies to paint. But next time I’ll start with the flowers!
Click here for painting purchase information.
My three wonderful next-door neighbor children bring me flowers every year for my birthday. This year the bouquet lasted so long I got to make two paintings from it. They come to my door, hand me the flowers and then each one shyly gives me a hug and says “Happy birthday.” I love that they’re still doing it at 10, 13 and 16.
When they were little they would come to the studio and make brilliant expressive paintings. Then school got the better of them and they started drawing the archetypical house under a rainbow with 2 windows, a door and smoke coming out of a chimney).
When I try to work too fast or am tired, I start generalizing, which rarely turns out well, whether in painting or drawing. It’s too easy to do like my neighbor kids and just make a generic house or bunch of flowers rather than these specific ones. I enjoy the process and the results much more when I go for accuracy in drawing, color and value.
Some people are great at simplifying and whipping out gorgeous, impressionistic art. But for me, it’s the individual personality of my subject that interest me; the specifics that make it that particular rose, place or person.
That was the discovery I made when painting these, so they are two more “almost” paintings (see previous post). Each one is just a stepping stone on the long and joyful path that is painting. (And some paintings really are better suited to use as stepping stones in the garden than hanging on the wall!)
Categories
Stealing Roses Again
There’s a mysterious house on my block that has been empty but well maintained for several years. The mailman delivers mail and the gardening service keeps things nice and neat but I never see anyone go in or out.
Their roses and fruit trees are blooming but there’s nobody home to enjoy them. So I stopped by with my scissors to give the roses a little respect by painting them, even if it means stealing them (as I’ve done before). These were yummy fun to paint!
It was time to take a break from portraits and do some still life painting after ten failed attempts at painting a friend from a not-great photo. I gathered some dandelions from my neighbor’s yard (I’m sure he didn’t mind) and stuck a few in my favorite old French Cognac bottle (that I found in the street years ago). With the addition of a bottle of Spanish wine, I had a still life ready to paint.
But first I did this watercolor sketch. Even if I plan to finish an oil painting in one go, it always helps do a sketch first to get to know my subject. And since I’m eager to get started with the oil painting, I work quickly which keeps my watercolor fresh and not overworked.
It was a relief to turn out something I liked after my frustrating journey with the portrait. But I haven’t given up on it. There are still two failed canvases facing the wall, waiting for me to make them work (or smash them to bits!)
All my time and creative energy for the past few weeks has been given to sorting, discarding, organizing and moving things as I downsize my living space and move to my new studio. All the studio furniture and most of the painting supplies and gear are in and I’ve emptied and removed almost all the big plastic bins on my steel shelving in the former garage, readying the space for art stuff and still life objects.
One bin was filled with 70+ old paintings on panels that I’d saved over the past few years after my annual January review-and-dump sessions. I’m keeping just 20 of the old ones and another 20 from last year that I like and dumping the rest. One cool thing about this process is that I could easily see where each reject painting went wrong, whether it was drawing, values, composition, and/or color choices. Hopefully that knowledge will help prevent making those mistakes so often in the future.
I also emptied a huge bin filled with family photos that never made it into albums. I filled a trash can with negatives and pics of pretty places and blurry faces. Now all the photos in their envelopes fit in one large file cabinet drawer. Those photos are still in great shape, but the ones in the family albums (with the sticky stuff behind the photos) are fading badly. Later I’ll pull those photos out of the albums and put them in envelopes or boxes too, as they suggest on Small Notebook, a great organizing/simplifying website.
My house is pretty much sorted out now, and in a week or so I should be back to “normal” life, painting and sketching regularly again. The rental unit still needs some finish work, but that can go on behind the scenes, without messes in my living space or cat-terrorizing-power tools and men in boots stomping through the house.
When the sun is shining I find it hard to stay indoors, painting in the studio, so I take a break for a walk and some “sketchercize.” I headed to the Farmers Market to sketch but got seduced by Trader Joe’s display of wreaths for sale instead.
While I stood and sketched, using a tall planter as a table for my watercolors and water, volunteers were collecting signatures on a petition to end the death penalty in California. I signed.
On my walk home I spotted a beautiful, wildly blooming abutilon with wonderful red and yellow patterned blossoms. I would have liked to snip off a few flowers to take home and draw in detail, but I recently read reports of flower thieves in my neighborhood, stealing whole plants as well as taking cuttings and ruining plants. I didn’t want anyone to think that thief was me!
If we don’t get a real fall or winter this year, maybe I can just draw fall and winter colors in my sketchbook? I got inspired by Apple-Pine’s persimmon sketching obsession to sketch (and eat) some persimmons of my own.
I really like the way this page turned out with the gold pen over the purple paint on the bottom that I originally added to correct a drawing/design problem, and the way the shadow (from something else on the table) kind of looks like a big number one.
It was over 70 degrees F today and my roses are so confused. Earlier this week we had a brief shower and a bit of cold but otherwise, it’s still not winter. I know: be careful what you wish for!
Jana Bouc, Artist 