Monday, February 13, 2012

Work in Progress: Dancing Tulip I and Petal Light (Continued...)

Another busy day running around in and out of the studio... Working a little bit on the First Dancing Tulip painting, testing out all the bright yellow-green springy colors to contrast with the reddish-purple flower, and putting in some wet-in-wet washes in the background echoing the flower color:


Dancing Tulip,  Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico 140# Cold Press Paper , 5"h x 7"w, WIP 2

And the ever-so-slow development of Petal Light continues... I am struggling over trying to darken the values of leaves in shadow without killing the colors too much or congest the surface with pigment. Luckily, Arches Paper is really great in that aspect -- due to the surface sizing pigments do not stay on surface as much as they do on softer papers such as Fabriano Artistico. The underpainting is getting close to be done, unfortunately, so is the deadline for picture submission....


Petal Light #1, 
 Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 10"h x 8"w, WIP 4

6 comments:

  1. Arena, the Dancing Tulip is off to a great start - love the use of flower colors in the background. The Pedal Light looks difficult [glad you're painting it, not me] :)

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  2. Both of them are looking really good! It's nice to see an artist who puts lots of thought and time into every piece.
    Have a great weekend.

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  3. Today I envy your busyness Arena. Nice to see the progress on Pedal Light.

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  4. Hello Arena,I'm Rita,from Italy.I love too paint watercolor flowers! Paint flowers is Happiness for me!Ciao!

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  5. Both looking very good Arena...are you using very small brushes for the flowers?

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    1. Hey Jane, I am using Richeson and Isabel Kolinsky Sable #6 for the Tulip, and #10 for the leaves in the Bird of paradise. For backgrounds of course I switch to larger brushes. Since most of these are painted by pre-wet the paper, then put in relatively rich pigment with dryer strokes, I use brushes that relatively hold less water, hence the smaller brush size!

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Thank you so much for taking time visiting and commenting on my blog! Your feedback and encouragements are things that keep me going with I am feeling down or frustrated... I will try my best to reply to every comment ASAP but sometimes life gets in the way and I am a bit slow in my response. I would like to apologize if that happens...

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