Thursday, July 23, 2009

BLUSHING MAGNOLIA

Staying very pale with these colors. And working slowly so I don't get into the rush-and-ruin state. The first stage is to see the blushing colors on the white flower and then put those in. Then I'll put in complementary grayed areas around the flower and maybe cutting into the flower in places. But all this has to be bone dry before I go back to it or everything will bleed and get ugly. I may darken some pale colors but only if necessary.


It looks so easy to paint this way when I see others do it...pale colors being built up until you get to the value you want. But it's not easy for me - I want to put some blended colors in there much darker than this. Going to try hard to keep this high key. (Apparently, I never learned how to paint watercolors like most watercolorists paint - light to dark slowly and surely!) The edging of the leaves is New Gamboge and is more yellow than this is showing but the camera would not pick up the yellow without distorting the blues and pinks and violets in the petals so it's a trade off.

4 comments:

jgr said...

It looks great so far. I take watercolor lessons from a talented instructor and her technique is wet into wet. It always looks like a mess at the beginning and it's always stunning at the end.
I'll be back to see the next step.

debwardart said...

Looks good so far - go slooooow! And stay paaaaaaale!!!

Joan Sandford-Cook said...

Need to comment on the last three posts. The egg exercise was very interesting and amazingly the soft original washes still left the feeling the eggs were white with those dark backgrounds - clever.
Love the photo Jerry - such subtle colours in the white petals.
Latest piece is looking intriguing - can't wait to see the next step.

RH Carpenter said...

Jane, you're right, I painted these blushes wet-into-wet so I'd stay pale. Love your latest post and have added you to my blogroll so I remember to visit more often.
Deb...slowly goes it! I know...but can I make myself go slow?
Joan, thanks so much for the comments! Jerry takes such wonderful photos I can use for reference that I really don't need to go elsewhere for inspiration.