Our peonies were blooming last week so I clipped a few. They were very droopy from the rain so I propped them up with some branchlets from our Japanese maple. Painting flowers with lots of little petals is always daunting! I always like the containers better than the flowers!
Face Off — Peruvian Lilies vs mountain Laurel Buds. Watercolor on paper. 9” x 9”.
I’m currently taking a class on mixed media and was intrigued when teacher Susan Hostetler mentioned “mock frescoes”, made by painting gouache into still-damp spackle or joint compound slathered onto cardboard or other heavy substrate. I decided to try it. My first attempt was a simplistic sugar bowl sitting on our kitchen table. My quick contour was misshapen, so I touched it up with some water-soluble pencils, moistening the marks to blend them into the gouache.
I then plopped down a seashell (interesting shape though dull colors) and tried again. I was happier with that one, though disappointed when a little flake popped out sometime later. Maybe a fixative would deter this type of defect — will have to research it. . . .
We’ve got a beautiful fluffy pink smoke bush in our front yard. It’s only a few years old but it’s grown huge. Its color is very interesting. Not ‘PINK pink’, but something fairly indescribable. I can show you better with my brush than with my words. I also give you a few photos below to get a sense of what I was looking at when I painted this one live.
This is another beauty from our garden, continuing the ‘big flower’ theme for a bit. Fortunately our three hibiscus plants made it through the winter and we might have more of these later in the summer. Yum.
Painting #14. Screaming Red Hibiscus. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 10×8.