March Daffodils

It's been a long time since i posted anything here. I have been in a creative funk for awhile, feeling uninspired, and unmotivated. Finally, I felt the need to do something creative again and was able to get a painting done. Somehow, I need to find a way to push through these funks when they happen so I can still paint. Really, once I start, I remember how much I really do love this, no matter how frustrating or tedious a painting can be.
Anyway, I decided to steal an idea from one of my good friends and do a calendar for 2013. (my friend Paule, you can see her awesome work here) . In many google searches, I found lists in various places of monthly flowers. Similar to birthstones, there is apparently a flower for each month. No site seems to agree on what they are, so I just picked my favorite ones for each month.
Every spring I am a maniac with a camera and take tons of pictures of flowers when they first bloom. Because of this I had some great photographs of daffodils. Therefore, for March, I went with daffodils. The birthstone for March is aquamarine so I went with a blue background for the piece.
Here is an abbreviated overview of my process for this painting.

First I picked the photographs.  I like to use reference when working on a flower painting so I used this photograph combined with another. I played with moving the flowers closer and flipping them around and came up with a composition

  

Then I do a rendered drawing to understand shadows and highlights.

 

Then I trace the drawing making the shadows and everything into shapes.

 

From here I do a color comp in photoshop. It's fun because it is kind of like coloring in a coloring book. I usually simplify the shapes at this point of the project. When I am satisfied with the colors, I transfer the drawing to a piece of hot-pressed watercolor paper and start painting.

painting the background first

progress report

And here is the finished product

The scan came out a bit brighter than the actually painting, but I kind of liked it. Daffodils are such bright cheerful flowers it made sense. I realized while painting that my process has become like a paint by number I create for myself. It was a fun realization, and makes me think that those years of doing paint by numbers did not go to waste (just kidding). Sometimes, it does get a little tedious, and I do need to figure out a faster process, but for now, it does work for me so maybe I will just try to get faster.
Enjoy!

Another Rainy Day

As I mentioned in my last post, the weather here is blah. We actually had a beautiful weekend, full of sun and warm weather; a perfect way to spend Mother's day weekend. I painted a picture of pansies for my mom as a gift, since pansies are her favorite flower. Unfortunately, I can't get the colors to scan right so you will have to be patient before I post that.
So here we are again, with it raining buckets outside. everything is wet and gray and gross. I actually don't mind rainy days; I love the gentle staccato of the rain against the leaves, the glisten of the water against the grass, the feeling that you either need to get a lot done indoors or snuggle up with blankets and a cup of tea. . .I really do love rainy days. However, I like rainy days few and far between. This constant gloom not only literally gives me a headache, it makes me feel depressed and antsy (not at the same time, obviously).

It also, as I mentioned in my previous post, has been coming up in my art. Here is the last of the rainy day pictures I had mentioned. (although, most certainly not the last one I paint!) Hopefully, it will give you some joy on this miserable day. It is meant to be a fun piece. Enjoy!

A mother bird tries to keep her babies dry in the rain. I wouldn't want to be the one on the end!

Spring: New Beginnings

I love that Spring has finally come! I get so discouraged by the winter, being cold all the time, gray skies. . . it just gets depressing and is very much not a motivating season for me. But Spring! I love all the flowers, especially at this time of year, so many of them are yellow! My family knows I am OBSESSED with this color. It's just such a cheerful and hopeful color! Soon, I hope to do some more flower paintings like the poppy painting in my last post (and yes, many of them will probably be yellow). I took a lot of reference pictures yesterday, so hopefully those paintings will be popping up here soon!

Any way, I am hoping that with this new season in the air, I can start a new season of creativity. I am hoping to get much more done, which of course I will share here. I thought a good way to start would be with some new promotional materials. I have started working on some paintings I hope to use for business cards, and I think they are coming out nicely. They are a bit more representative of what I want to do than my last bunch was, which is a good and needed change. I have painted three of them already, and will share them all with you eventually. For now, this is the one I just finished.

 

The colors didn't scan perfectly which I have to figure out. The orange is lighter than it shows up here. The rest are almost accurate. If anyone has any suggestions about getting accurate scans, I am all ears!

Now, I am going to go enjoy this lovely weather. Maybe I will get some more reference pictures, maybe I will bring my sketchbook out and draw. However, I think I will most likely lay in the sun and soak up the inspiration nature and Spring always share.

If you are in the New York area, go outside! enjoy this beautiful day.