Flower Power

After my adventures trying to paint wildlife, I decided to do a subject I am more familiar with. I chose from my flower photos a single pansy viewed from the back with light coming through the petals. I love when the sunlight makes the flower petals glow. I chose another small canvas, 6"x 8".

I started with a value sketch underpainting in black and white. This gets everything in position and is supposed to make things go faster when you start adding color. I found that this caused me some trouble if I wanted to make a change to the painting. I was hard to cover over the black and still get that glow in the petals I wanted. I had to repaint in a lighter color and let it dry, then glaze over that with the color I wanted.

When I had worked with the colors I had for awhile, I realized I couldn't get the color right and had to buy some different paint. Namely,Mauve and Rose Violet in the Duo brand that were sheer colors without so much white in them.

I was keeping track of the hours it took to finish the painting. Because of the repainting and changes, it took fourteen and a half total hours. The fox took twenty hours, so it was an improvement, but still not the six hours I was hoping for. I have a bad habit of thinking I can just do things perfectly the first time, and then getting discouraged when it doesn't work out. If anyone has any positive suggestions on how to change this sort of mind set, please let me know!

Jeff's Corner: Sometimes it's not necessary to reinvent the wheel...