Daisies Are Back...

I have finally gotten back to painting those daisies that I started I don't know how many months ago...I think last time we saw them, they looked like this:

Only the stems had been completely painted and a few bits of yellow on the top daisy. Well, now it looks like this:

Got a bit more done on the yellow daisy and started playing around with the orange one.  We just moved again and while I was waiting for a shipment of our stuff with my watercolors in it, I tried using watercolor pencils on the orange daisy. I didn't get too far and figured I'd just wait for my watercolors to show up. So now I will continue to work on these, and keep you updated on my progress :)

Also, over the summer, I also got a new paintbrush! 

I know, I know, you're so excited about it, too! Well, I told you I'm an art supply dork and stuff like this thrills me. I love this brush! It holds so much paint and water and it's ridiculously fun to splash paint around with it. So anyway, back to work!

The Barn Painting

I finished another commissioned painting about a month ago for my neighbor. (He's my best customer! haha). Sorry I haven't posted in a while, my Painter program where I edit my photos hasn't been working and I just got it fixed today (thank you, Fiance ;-) ) I don't like to post photos where you can see the background of where I photograph my work, it doesn't look too professional. :-/  So, here is the reference photo he gave me:

Here is my finished painting (watercolor and gouache on hot pressed smooth paper, 14"x20"):

Sorry for the poor quality photo. I took all these pictures with my phone and thought they came out fine.  Only when I uploaded them to my computer did I realize some were blurry, and by that time I had already given the painting to my neighbor. :-(  It looks much better in real life, I think. But anyway, here is how I got there:

I had first masked out all the trees and the moon with masking fluid and then painted the sky, using cobalt blue, ultramarine blue and permanent rose (I think those were the colors...). Once I was happy with the sky I started painting the background trees by basically scrubbing some shades of brown and purple into the background and blending it a little at the edge where trees meet sky. I removed some masking fluid to paint in the larger trees and started painting some of the darks in the barn. 

I started working more on the barn using burnt umber, burnt sienna, sepia and ultramarine blue. 

Putting the fence in using similar colors to the barn, burnt umber, sepia and ultramarine blue. 

Working more on the trees...

Pretty much finished with the trees and the fence behind the barn. 

Finished the trees and put all the snow on the branches, same for the fence and painted the snow on the ground (hard to see, I know, it's snow, but in person it looks better haha). All that was left was the shrubs and plants in front of the fence, and we're done!

And there again is the finished painting. 

Hope you like it!

A step by step daisy painting...

I want to start another painting of gerber daisies, and I've had this particular one sketched on watercolor paper for about 8 months.  I had been busy with commissions and now I have some time to work on my own projects. So I'm going to post step by step as I work on it. I forgot to photograph the drawing before I started masking, but you'll get the idea. I'm using my own photos of gerber daisies, three different photos and made them into one painting. So first step, I had to go buy some masking fluid because I left mine at home in the US.  Then I got out my ruling pen so I would have nice, even lines and not worry about using a brush. 

Also, you might notice the ripped tape around the borders...I want it to have an uneven, kind of ripped paper looking border, hence the strange tape job ;)

I'm going to mask only around the outer edges of the flowers, since I'm going to work on the background and I want to keep the edges of the flowers crisp and visible and not worry when I'm busy splashing paint around.  I'm using the ruling pen carefully, to avoid gouging the paper.  You don't need to press hard. 

I really love the ruling pen, it gives you such clean lines! I highly recommend it!
So now the flowers are all masked...

And I wait for it to dry, then have fun with the background!
With this painting, I really want to try loosening up and not do my usual tightly rendered style. I want to splash paint around and not worry about a lot of detail.  I want to mask the flowers to keep the shapes while I go nuts with the background, but after that all bets are off. We'll see how it goes! More tomorrow...