Sorry for the lack of posts, I just finished up a four day workshop on floral paintings and it was a blast!
My workshop inspired today’s tip which is on color again.
Why you ask?
Well it is extremely important, so you can never get enough of it.
This painting, Glory of the Morning, was inspired by some morning glories I found growing all over the cliffs in Bermuda.
Beware, because this flower looks deceptively simple to paint.
But we are all up for a challenge, right?
The flower has large shapes of joining petals that required patience and speed to paint. The more I did, the worse they looked.
But like I said before, you need to fail toward success.
Not only were the petals interesting, but also the buds and leaves. I used the buds and twisted vines to break up some of the big shapes. I really concentrated on making the washes go all around the flower to keep the freshness they exude.
The main thing I did to simplify this painting was to stretch the palette in the color harmonies of blue.
Blue is next to green and violet on the color wheel. If you want more on the color wheel check out this blog post .
I used both tints (adding water) and shades (adding complements and darker pigments) to use a wide variety of the blue greens and violets.
This gives the painting a color dominance and makes it stronger and the toned down colors make the pure colors appear more vibrant.
Ellen
