Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Talking of flowers


Painting flowers is a lot like the class subject of painting a background and then finding the face, except in water color you have to save a few flowers that were in your drawing mind and not get a lot of paint on the main subject, then paint around that in layers and hunt for the extras, there are buds, backviews, sideviews, that sort of thing, I usually save a few leaves also like I did the 3 flowers that were the main focus. You hunt for shapes and they appear. I taught this in class also some years ago, and it takes a bit if squinting, imagination, plus a willingness to
see what there is, not what you want there to be. I have relearned this recently. This thought of what there is and not what you want there to be plays in our lives in a lot of aspects.


There is a lot of learning, Acrylics, watercolors, pencils, crayons, oils, pastels, all work differently and watercolor interacts with the paper quite differently than other paints. You have to be willing
to let the paint run, mix, flow, as it wants with just a little control. And there is another factor
the make up the of colors interact differently with each other so that is another thing to keep
in mind. Some colors are more transparent than others and that causes a different reaction of the paint when they meet on the paper.

So more flowers today. I did not get to work on what I wanted to show you, too many things
that entered into the day. I saw things that were there when I really wanted to see something else.

3 comments:

Star said...

This just takes my breath away! The whole piece, the color and composition is just wonderful! There's a lot of 'trust' in art if you can learn to just let it be free and come to you (with that squinting and imagination)as it wants to; not to force it. I think it's pretty much the trust factor I have problems with.
I'm slowly gathering some water colours and brushes....just need the courage to give it a try. I'm so bad about the lerning stages....I want a masterpiece right away! Ha!
Thanks for the details!! Your watercolours are just wonderful!

wandamarie.blogspot.com said...

your work is stunning in this piece, emelie! and your woman in red, is my absolute favorite, so far...i just know there'll be others...your "OWNSELF" is truly shining through these days!!!

Diane said...

Emelie, these are stunning!!! Sometimes I like it when you don't have control of the mediums that you're using, because you learn, and also some unexpected happy accidents happen.