I always try to learn a few things every day. With painting that’s not hard, because I have a lot to learn. I do keep my mind open for other things, which I’ll get to after today’s experiment.

Today’s Experiment

I love color. In the flower I chose today, there was the palest of pink-ishes combined with a bright yellow center and red surround. Here is the photo I worked from:

More Flowers

Beginning

These flowers are really not pink. They are slightly pinkish, but I would say they are on the blue side of pink. I recently got this great-sounding color: Rose of Ultramarine. Sounds like some kind of underwater flower, doesn’t it?  I tried it once before and it is really intense, so I used a LOT of Chinese white to gain the appropriate hue.

I used Winsor red for the annular ring and Cadmium yellow pale for the central yellow. The latter was a mistake, as this color is more orange than yellow. I got the ‘cadmium’ part right, as I wanted an opaque color.

Here is my beginning sketch:

More Flowers – 1
7″x5″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

Oh, and I put some foliage in. Those disembodied flower heads from yesterday bothered me for some reason.

Attempts to finish

I think I got the basic color scheme, but I was wondering how I would be able to glaze these flowers. First of all, the scale was small, 7″x5″; secondly, the pale color of the leaves, made me think that it would be very difficult to apply additional layers without darkening this delicate shade.

I thought of lightening the color with Chinese white, but by accident, I found that the Chinese white is opaque and therefore, not suitable for glazing. The I realized that another way to obtain a pale color is to dilute it with water. I tried two ways to do this: 1) to dilute it fully and then apply it to the painting; 2) to dilute it partially, apply it and then remove the excess with a dry brush. It is very cool how a dry brush absorbs paint.

I don’t know if this is the right way to glazed pale colors without darkening them. Perhaps no glazing is the key, or maybe glazing should be done full strength and sponged away…

More Flowers – 2
7″x5″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

After glazing the petals, I glazed the red and the yellow, this time with the old standby, lemon yellow.

I became busy with the details. I noticed that the brownish lines that divided the petals, ran into the center of the flowers, there were other dark lines that also ran into the center. At the center of the flowers were two small yellow bulbs as offshoots to a central green blob. I represented the yellow bits with small circles I drew in with my pen.

Here’s the other thing I learned today… or at least surmised. You see, I was looking for other lines extending from the petals to the center of the flower, all the way around the flower’s circumference. Unless I didn’t capture it in my photograph, or my eyes are going bad, there were NO LINES ON THE BOTTOM!

But I figured it out. There were only lines on the top portion so that the insects coming in would not be confused. The flower had a built in runway!

While this might not be true, it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.