Hydrangea Wreath Completed.....

My Hydrangea Wreath painting is now complete......every last detail finished.

I'm showing the overall finished work in the next series of photos but I haven't forgotten about the work itself in progress that I was showing and we'll pick up with that later on in the post.

I know, you're wondering where in the world this second bird in the upper left hand corner came from. That little chickadee wasn't in the finished sketch, so how did he get there?? Ow the questions.....

The wonderful thing about doing a painting on gallery canvas is that it needs no frame, as you can see here, the mottled green background is brought around to all 4 sides. The painting is 14" x 18" and the canvas is 1 1/2" deep.

This is where we left off in my last post....the topmost bloom had been painted.

I then started working on the two purple blooms at the bottom of the wreath. Here I've just barely started on them.

Now we can see them fully finished!

The next thing on my list was the 2nd blue Hydrangea bloom. Once that was completed, I could move onto the bird or should I say "birds" as it turned out.

Here I've completed the bird that I had originally sketched onto the canvas. This is where the second bird comes in though.....after the first chickadee was painted, I felt he was lonely and needed some company. Something just seemed as if it were missing to me. At this point I knew I wanted another chickadee in the painting but the question was where to put him. I decided he would look quite cute hiding behind the topmost Hydrangea blossom, peeking down at his friend.

Once that little guy was painted in, I felt quite happy. I also at this point added some color around the blue oval...the dark blue that is in my Hydrangea blooms, this gives the center of the wreath added dimention. I also, if you will notice, added little tendrils all around my grape vine wreath. I believe a part of any good painting is listening to what the piece tells you. This means even the best made plans can and should change if you think as you paint, that things need to be added, taken away, or just plain different. Listening to what your painting is telling you and being flexible with your own work is a sure way to a happy end result. Hope you enjoyed the process and being able to see the finished piece. This piece is available on my ETSY site... http://www.artfulcreations.etsy.com/ and will soon be coming to my website.