First reaction was "It's way too hard without the lines!". Can you imagine the difficulty? And why did I even choose a complex subject to boot? It was totally out of my comfort zone! However, it was a good exercise, engaging, and fun.
Applying the tips from Elisa's workshop - back to front, light to dark, big to small - although I must admit, none of those were sticking. The only thing I could think of was how the heck will this thing turn out sans the lines?
I put some light green wash for big shapes and leaving out some white space for the flowers. For the flower placement guide, I dabbled some pink and egg yellow as an indicator. Then working on the leaves, I noticed my strokes were automatic. It was easy to revert to learned shapes rather than from direct observation. You'll notice the inaccuracy if you look closely. For the white peonies to pop out against the white board, I used the creative license to change the background color to a darker shade of green, somewhat.
It took more than a couple of hours to finish but I'm happy with the results.
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| The finished artwork. |
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| My Plein Air setup. |
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| The subject and the results. |
Nice job, Mel. I find it is easier to do flowers directly in watercolor because you don't need exact lines or placement. Also negative painting adds a lot.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joan. You know I've been looking at your work to see what I could learn from it. This was the first work that the negative painting came to mind. Oh, so much to learn! Thanks for visiting.
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