White Star Flower Painting

The White Star Flower painting is now finished.  And for a white flower, I've discovered that there's an awful lot of blue in it!  I think it's worked quite well although, to be honest, I'm not quite as heart-skippy pleased with it as the previous ones I've done.  Not sure why.  I like to do things well and, like everyone who creates anything at all, the flaws in the finished object always seem enormous to me.  I'm not entirely satisfied with the flower for some reason I can't quite put my finger on.  Perhaps I've been looking at it up close for too long.  Never mind, I'll show you some photos of it in progress:


This was putting the first few colours on, with the original print out of the photo at the top of the board.  It's best to start with the darker colours first, then gradually add the lighter ones, before finishing with the flower.  Again, there are layers and layers and layers of subtly different shades all mixed in, using a dry brush (also known as 'scumble glaze') technique which after a few hours kills your shoulder muscles as it takes a long time using hardly any paint on a dry stencil brush using a circular motion to get the airbrushed effect.  I can only actively do it for an hour or so before I have to give my aching muscles a rest, it's that physical!



This is the final painting and you can see if you compare it with the photo above that the background has been lightened, and darkened, and altered, which all takes time and patient observation and lots and LOTS of colour mixing.




And this is it finally with the masking tape removed and the edges (where the paint managed to get under the tape) touched up with white paint.

All my flower paintings are done on A4 size acrylic paper (that is, paper designed to painted on with acrylic paints as opposed to watercolours or oil paints), which I've now got used to using.

And now I'm looking forward to starting my next flower painting.  I'm going for something more colourful this time - here's the original photo:



Bright, isn't it?  I'll keep you posted!!