Spring Tulip Wreath Acrylic Painting......

Being inspired by all the warm weather we have had in March ( by the way, it is cold and rainy again here in NY at the moment ) I created "Spring Tulip Wreath". Hopefully this colorful piece will help usher in the warm weather again. This painting is 12" x 12" on gallery canvas.

At the moment, I'm getting ready to start a series of garden paintings with contemporary abstract backgrounds, kind of framing that out in my mind at the moment. This is always the first step to getting a new painting together. The second step is getting a sketch together and starting to get to work on the canvas. Perhaps I'll chart the progress of my new painting as I go along. Happy April Everyone.

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.

A Hydrangea Wreath In The Making - Part II

I've made quite a bit of progress on my Hydrangea wreath painting since I showed photos of it the last time. When I left off with my progress, the above was the last thing we saw.

I've made a lot more color decisions since then, including the colors of the Hydrangeas themselves. First though I had a lot of fun playing in some very wet paint, swirling and twirling colors all around, to create the multi-colored green background above. I love working with very wet paint and although it takes some time to dry, I like the results I get.

I also decided to use the blue shades I'm working with to fill in the spaces between the grapevine wreath. At this point though I've lost some of the wreath as it got painted over and also, I had wanted to define it and make it more bold.....which leads us onto the next photo to see some of the results........

Here I've reworked the grapevine wreath to make it pop out from the canvas. To do this I used a couple of different browns.

Here I've painted in a few of the leaves...again working with the paint very wet as I was enjoying the results. I've also decided on the color for my largest Hydrangea. It will be a beautiful blue, fully opened bloom. Here I've done some of the basecoating to lay the ground work for the rest of the bloom. My Hydrangeas are a bit time consuming to paint and I use quite a few colors on each one but again, I seem to like this process and most of all, the end result.

This shows the finished bloom...fully painted and detailed. Months ago as I was painting some Hydrangeas, I develped the method I like to use for them and realized it was a bit complicated for me to remember so I wrote everything that I did down, the colors, when I use them, where I use them etc... Now every time I want to paint Hydrangeas, no matter the colors, I always look at my notebook . I find keeping a notebook full of colors, ideas and techniques that I had a good experience with, really works well for me. Sometimes when you have a result that you are happy with you think you will remember how to do it the next time....this just isn't so, not for me anyway, that is why I've started writing things down.

I'm trying to be very diligent about taking photos of this paintings' progress so I'll be posting more as I go along.

A Hydrangea Wreath In The Making

I've started a new painting this week, one that is inspired by the Hydrangeas that I love so much in my own garden.

These up close and personal shots were taken last year when my Hydrangeas were in full bloom and looking beautiful.

I'm always amazed at all the different colors I can see at all the different stages of the blooms life. The array of amazing colors gives me great ideas for the combinations I will be using in a painting, whether now or down the road.

I've been wanting to do some wreath paintings for quite a while now and I decided on Hydrangeas as the flowers that will decorate my wreath. Above I've gotten the design started on my 14" x 18" gallery canvas. I know it is hard to see the progress at this point but just look below to see how getting some of the basics done, really starts to make the design stand out.

Here I've gotten the twig wreath pretty much down on the canvas the way I want it. I then went in and decided to do a dreamy sky like background for the center of the wreath. It took me quite a while to get the blue and white fluffy enough but eventually I ended up with something I was happy with. I may always tweak it in the upcoming days but for now, it is good enough and I will move on to the next thing which will be to paint the area outside the wreath. I'll keep posting progress on this painting until little by little, you can see it come together.