Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Wednesday, October 17, 1007 - Gina's Cactus (WatercolorWorkshop October Project)

A group project from WatercolorWorkshop is to paint these cactus flowers. There have been some great renderings already but I wanted to try my hand at these, too. The photo is great - taken and shared by Gina Hall. Gina does fantastic animal portraits and also paints sculptured horses - check out her blog at: http://ginahallstudios.blogspot.com/
to see some of her great work.
So now all I have to do is do this beautiful photo justice with my watercolor painting :) Here's what I have to start. I need more greens on the cactus flats (whatever you call those) and darken the background in the left and maybe it will be done. Don't want to do much else to the flowers or they'll be overworked but the greens need more work.

3 comments:

Sandy Maudlin said...

Rhonda,
the flower is exquisite! Consider softening the bottom where it joins the plant and leave the rest just like it is. Can't wait to see it done.

Watercolors by Susan Roper said...

Rhonda,

This is goi gnto be one of the better ones! You have nailed the colors and textures of that larger blossom and it looks great against that blue. I look forward to seeing more color on the remaining cactus pad. I agree with Sandy, softening that joint where the flower meets its base, as well as lifting out a bit above that area to show where the petals curve away from that joint will make it even more realistic. Nice job on this!
Susan

RH Carpenter said...

Thanks, Sandy and Susan! You two are my extra eyes :) :)