A group of flamboyant spider flowers or cleome drew me into their orbit.
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| Cleome, casein on canvas mounted to panel, 11 x 14 |
I chose casein on canvas because it allows me to overlap opaque strokes without picking up previous layers. This was especially helpful on the oval petals and the long filament-like stamens.
The palmate leaves get smaller as you go up the stem. In some of the lower areas I painted a variegated base color for the leaves and then pulled them out by painting the dark negative shapes between the leaves.
I shot video coverage of the painting, which I'll release later. I'm thinking of doing a video feature called "Painting Flowers in the Wild" (which is quite different from painting cut flowers indoors).
On Sunday afternoon, the gardens were full of artists because it was Plein Air Invitational day. It was fun talking shop with experienced fellow painters.
James,
ReplyDeleteAre you using your watercolor setup for the palette and then a separate tripod for the 11x14 canvas? I recently started painting outside using a pochade box , the kind where your painting surface is in the lid of the box. Unfortunately, leaning my arm on the box is giving me arm and hand pain. Will have to change my setup. Maybe to yours.
I'm using my little sketch easel with the 11 x 14 clipped to the top panel. As you probably know, the palette and water are held on to the bottom panel with magnets, and the bottom panel can be moved down out of the way to avoid getting in the way of the painting arm. In the photo in this post, the panel isn't on the ease at the moment, and the second tripod holds the camera bar and the third tripod holds the "GurneyX" diffuser.
ReplyDeleteThanks James
ReplyDeleteI have your watercolor in the wild, so will build something like that. By the way, your painting of the flowers is breathtaking. Love it!
Wonderful painting. Looking forward to Flowers In The Wild. Along these lines are you planning a Landscapes in the Wild video?
ReplyDeleteGreat painting!
ReplyDeleteDid I miss the blog post on the "GurneyX" diffuser? How does it handle in the wind?
I was thinking it would be helpful if a sun shade was shaped like a car spoiler wing so it kept the tripod on the ground. But then the spoiler would always have to face into the wind to work....hmmm...
Thanks again for including me in the event James. It was great fun. The small screen don't do this paiinting justice. I gasped when I saw it. The subtleties in the foliage and the variety of colour is quite spectacular.
ReplyDeleteThese flowers came out really beautiful. I love the exquisite detail. You were smart to use the casein. I can't imagine doing it in watercolors without spending eons masking out the flowers.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Shari. (Shari was one of the invited artists, and she appears to the right of the second photo). I love the paintings you did, and it was fun to paint with you.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joan. The opacity of casein is nice because you can build the structure of the flower in layers without subtracting out the lights. Gouache would have worked too. The challenge is to get variety in the leaf color and not paint them all one color.
ReplyDeleteDaroo, yes, it's great in wind. No, I didn't do a blog post on it yet. Just came up, with the name.
Glenn, perhaps. Maybe the only DVD I can't make part of the series is "Girls in the Wild."
I would definitely like to see a video on not only flowers, but painting realistic-looking foliage in water media. You've touched on it in a number of videos (where you've done it in oils on some of the dinosaur videos; and the swamp one, which was great), but nothing comprehensive showing a start to finish--the drawing, lay-in, color layers, and adding details. This is one area I still struggle with for some reason.
ReplyDeleteGlad you mentioned foliage, too, Linda. I've been thinking about that too. The challenge with foliage is getting the right leaf shapes in perspective, and also getting all the variation on each leaf and a suggestion of what's going on behind the detail behind the plant. The strategies are really different for opaques and transparent paints, and I'd love to show both methods.
ReplyDelete