Floral

Dying Sunflowers — Painting #100

| cathmary1030

Wow! I’ve actually made 100 paintings. This one was my first from life rather than a photo. And, man, these sunflowers are in bad shape! I bought them specifically to paint them, but I’ve been drawing rather than painting for the last week or so. (I did take some photos of them right when I bought them, though, so I can try again.)

I decide to use my new Green Earth paint for the stems and leaves (mixed with my go-to Chromium Oxide Green. I used Diarylide Yellow for the petals, and a mix of Burnt Umber Light w/ Carbon Black for the faces of the flowers.

Sunflower #2: Complete

| cathmary1030

Here’s the finished sunflower.

I used Yellow Ochre for the shaded parts of the petals, and Liquitex Soft Body Yellow Azo Med (PY 74) for the brighter parts of the petals. The yellow is fairly transparent, so I deliberately wanted to leave brush marks to give some additional definition to the petals.

I may come back around and paint over the greenish areas where I overpainted the yellow on to the background. Then again, maybe not, as from afar it looks a bit like shadow. We’ll see.

Based on an image by Couleur from Pixabay

Sunflower #2: Work-in-Progress

| cathmary1030

This 6×8 sunflower painting was based on an image by Couleur from Pixabay.

The green I used was one of my favorites — Chromium Oxide Green (PG 17) Liquitex Heavy Body. For the darkest green, I mixed it with Alizarin Crimson. The medium green is straight from the tube. And the lightest silvery green is Liquitex BASICS Green Gray.

This time for the sky I used Phthalo Blue from Golden Fluid, mixing it with the Golden Fluid Titanium White.

Sunflower #1

| cathmary1030

This sunflower painting was based on an image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay. For the sky, I used Utrecht Fluid Cerulean Blue and Golden Fluid Titanium White — which works better for tinting as it doesn’t get so chalky looking as the Heavy Body. My camera doesn’t quite capture the color, but it’s close.

Painted on a 6×8 canvas.

Red Poppies: Adventures in Acrylic

| cathmary1030

The next-up item in the Marla Baggetta Adventures in Acrylic course was these red poppies. She suggested we use fluorescent orange spray paint for our background; instead, I used my perinone orange paint by Chroma Atelier Interactive, which I find wildly fluorescent!

Using the reference photo, I drew the poppies in pencil over the painted canvas, and then watched her video, closed up my laptop, and did my best from-memory version. At the very end, you use a white gel pen to outline as you see fit; here, I reviewed the image of her final work, and then just winged it.

This was fun!

Gorgeous Spring day

| cathmary1030

Today I’m posting Nature’s art.. Sunday was too gorgeous a day to stay inside. Lots of sun, nearly desert-dry, and quite warm (almost hot!) at 94 F (34 C). I look forward every spring to walking by this house about a mile from my own — because of the white narcissus in bloom alongside their fence.