Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Snowdrops


So after watching Birgitt’s video on how to do a white flower I thought I’d try it out on some snowdrops, instead of following along with her example.  I did this for a few reasons: first, I find it difficult to do anything when I can’t see where it’s going or what the final result will be.  Second, I have no connection with the image Birgitt chose, so it is difficult for me to render it properly.  Third, having my own image means I can make my own map, with directions on how to get where I want to go.  And fourth, snowdrops are a simple shape, without a lot of bends and folds to follow.

I created an image of snowdrops from pictures I took during a walk with the family near my home.  They were fully in bloom and all the snow had passed.  From this image, I determined a light source and basically gave things a rough shape.  This is my map.  I didn’t worry about composition too much, or accuracy.  The point of this exercise was to paint the flowers using Birgitt’s technique – not get caught up in the details.


I re-watched some of the video for specific pointers.  For Birgitt’s white flowers she uses greens, yellows and blues with some yellow ochre or burnt sienna (I assume for the shadows as she doesn’t really say).  I quickly sketched my image onto the back of one of my other exercise pieces.  This time I think it’s a Fabriano 140lb – not Arches.  Then I prepared my paints and mixed my colours.

Ironically, the nice thing about painting white flowers is you HAVE to use a lot of water to keep the colours light.  I’m pretty good at this part (mixing rich, dark colours on the other hand…).  Then I got to work. I worked each petal individually and layered darker values for the shaded areas of the petals.

Once the flowers were done, it was a question of what to do with the background.  Birgitt says that a dark background will really help white flowers pop.  I figured that using a contrasting colour might also help, so I pulled out my handy-dandy colour wheel.  Since the flowers are mostly greens, blues, and yellows, the contrasting colours would be purples, reds, and oranges.  I did my best to mix up a thick batch onto my palette. Looking back, it might have been a good idea to take a picture of the flowers before I painted the background so you could get an idea of just how dark and colourful the flowers looked against the white paper.  Oh well.  As they say: hindsight is 20:20.

Here you can see my reference sketch relative to the finished painting.  It was drawn on a very small piece of note paper.

As the background was drying I thought that another way to help the flowers pop would be to add a texture to the background, since the petals are very smooth.  While the painting was still a little damp, I splattered pure water here and there for texture.  It had a really cool effect and I think it gives the suggestion of snow.



I am much happier with the way this painting came out than the succulents.  I managed to keep edges rather than lines, and I have soft and hard edges this time.  I didn’t find myself wanting to repeatedly go over everything in an attempt to fix the contrast.  I think this was in part because I had a map to draw from and see where the contrast should be from the beginning. I have to say that I like the picture of the painting more than the actual painting.  In reality the petals have more yellow to them and I’m not super-thrilled with that.

I did learn a few more things as well.  Definitely use larger brushes when possible.  Vary the brush when you need to so that you can keep your lines sharp (mine aren’t so much).  When you are reusing paper (i.e. painting on the back of something else), be sure to notice if the sizing has gone.  If you look closely at the top of the painting and in the far right petal, you will see dark spots in the even, textural pattern of the paper.  These started to come up as soon as I put water to the page and ultra-absorbed the pigments.  I would have been really annoyed if this had been meant as a finished piece and that had happened. 

I still need to work on my brush work.  My lines aren’t as even as I’d like them to be, and you can see a few places where I accidently went over the flowers with the background colour.  I tried to mop it out, but that only works so far before you start to wreck things.  Again, I’m hoping that practice will help with this more than anything.

These exercises have given me a lot to think about with my crocus picture.  I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to tackle that one just yet, but I am ready to start thinking about what I need in a more serious manner.  I’ll spend the next day or so thinking in that direction and we’ll see what comes of it.

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