Class Four: Seattle Flowers

After an exhilarating and healing trip to Seattle with my bestie, I happily made my way to class, not sure what we were going to work on next but, to be honest, I didn't really care. Excited no matter what we were gonna do, but apparently Mrs. C had requested flowers. Score! Cool, I can do that, I am an O'Keeffe fan... BUT WAIT! Can I paint from the pics I took from Seattle? Yes?! Oh now we are talking!!

These are the pictures from Seattle that I chose to work from.

As per the new routine, I sketched out two ideas of my plan before putting brush to canvas. A nice yellow ocher and burnt sienna wash later and off to the races we went.  Poor Mrs. C never made it to class, so Ms. L and I had our own little session together. She worked on her flowers while I worked on mine. Music, paint, zen... One little composition gem I heard today was to make sure the eye moves around the whole piece. If you get stuck in one spot, then the painting isn't doing its job. Also a good reminder to use your colors all over the painting. Lovely.

A wash and the sketches of my Seattle Flowers.

Yeah, I wish I had taken note of the flower's names too.

Where are the lights and where are the shadows?  Creating shadows where you may not see them in the photo but you know they are there. Working on that, check.  Oh and remember that blurry/vague to detailed idea that we discussed last time? Yeah, still effing hard to do. I kept working as best I could to avoid detailing as I went, but wow, it is clearly a habit that I need to put more effort into breaking. Ms. L tried to help me with my shading and as she painted some broad strokes across my highly detailed flower I felt myself weep a little inside. She asked me if I thought it was improved... I'm sorry! Im so sorry but I really liked it better before. Now here is where I get a little cerebral. I want to learn, want to improve my skills, but I feel like my style or signature as she says, may be different from hers. So how do we balance the two?

Yeah. so, um, flowers.

Do you see all the lines? I really think I am beginning to understand what Ms. L says about Lines versus edges and shapes, but here is where the ability "to see" comes into play. I do not know how to paint without the lines. They feel so important and how does one see shadows underneath the object? A great lesson,for sure, and I hope to have some time to work on it more before next week. Unfinished, but hey, we shall see where it goes.