Peony

This sort of thing has NOT been my style, probably because I didn't think I could draw something this complicated, thought I'd get lost in the drawing (it's easy!) and didn't think I had the patience. Well, I tried it and I like the results. And now I know a LOT more about peonies and how they're put together. I painted each section separately and waited until all was dry around a section before I painted it. With so many little pieces in a peony, there are always dry areas in which to paint. I used a much smaller brush than I normally do. During the course of the painting, I figured out to make a beautiful red glow and that's worth the whole project! I'm certainly not going to do this sort of thing all the time, but it's fun to add another tool/technique to my stash.

Now I'm trying to decide whether to put in a background. It would just be faint, maybe just at the bottom. Maybe none at all . . .

Flowers and more flowers!

I had a photograph of poppies taken at a friend's house and another friend brought some Japanese iris and peonies for our painting morning today. I first worked in my sketchbook (first picture) with a fine black pen and watercolors then moved to "proper" watercolor paper for the second painting. Now I like the first one better because the poppies in the second look almost like zinnias. In the sketchbook, I drew the poppies with the pen, then just kept adding stuff to make it more interesting. After lunch I did a peony not quite out with some of the irises. None of these was any attempt to paint the arrangement; I used the photo and flowers for reference only.