Hi again everyone, A new day and a new painting to show finished and off the easel. Done on a stretched canvas 20″ x 24″ depicting one of my favorite flowers “Clematis”.This particular one captured my eyes with its beautiful colors of mauve. The yellow centers just complimented them so well and the green leaves set a nice platform for them to spring off of in the painting. It was hard to set a boundary for the edges of this painting because of the quantity of flowers growing on this vine but with a little help of cropping on my computer I finally determined this was the way I wanted to present them.
Wonderful how we can now use our computers to crop and do so much with our photos to get ready to sit and put them onto our canvas. The only thing I find about photographing subjects you tend to loose the extreme light and dark values in the photograph.Mine at least can look a little flat at times but then I have to think a little harder about how did that light look when I was actually there in person to take the photo of the subject and use my imagination to recreate the magic of light and shadows. This all comes with practice and really paying attention to details like this when first looking at your subject.
When I teach a class to a new bunch of artists ,I always say draw me a leaf, any kind of leaf. That lets me know who really looks at detail and who doesn’t. Some may choose to keep it loose and whatever. While others really want it to resemble a true leaf when finished. It is always amazing to see what transpires on the paper before them and the funny look on their faces when the question is asked. ” I know what a leaf looks like” they will say, but when it comes time to draw it, it is a whole other story sometimes! Try it yourself and see what kind of job you do in drawing a simple subject like a leaf! Which way does the stem go? is the outside edge smooth or raggity? How do the viens in the leaf go? Is there a texture to the leaf? How big is this leaf in real life compared to it’s flower? Does it lay flat or does it cup?
I’ll leave you with this for today and hope it opens your eyes to look more closely at all the wonders we have in this world around us, starting with a simple leaf.
Bye for now.
May Moore
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