Bearded Iris

This weekend we had a fabulous time, in glorious weather exploring the Northern Dales , staying in the beautiful market town of Hawes. 

The scenery was breathtaking and filled my artistic brain with lots of ideas.

It's nice too when the sun goes in and the clouds race across the sky, creating beautiful lights and darks.

 

This week has been an unexpectantly busy one for me, I had no idea that older mermaids would prove so popular, but they did , and I have spent a happy morning sorting out orders and getting things in the post. Also trying to get some summer bedding planted

And finally taking a look around the garden, and smiling , as some of my iris are out,

time to think about painting one maybe,

in the meantime here is one I painted earlier 

 

1.

 

So armed with a reference photo from Pixabay, my paints and water I sketched out the rough outline, and began. The puzzle ,always, with a new subject is figuring out how you can make the paint 'read' as the subject you are painting. I knew i didn't want to be too precise, I also wanted a vibrant finished piece...I swallowed hard and set off.

2. 

 

I began by spraying the paper then dropping in the colour, I wanted this part to be loose, and see if I could get the veins on the flower's petals. I was also looking for lights and darks.

there is a lot going on all at once, and I am feeling my way though , this could all go horribly wrong but be brave, and just put it all down to experience if it doesn't work.

 

3.

 

 

Working quickly, wet in wet, I am adding and taking away, these colours stain so they are difficult to remove, Alizarin Crimson, rose, Cobalt blue, then a drop of yellow. All good fun but sometimes it all seems a bit out of control. I am working things out as I go along seeing what happens and responding it.

4.

 

Now stepping back as the painting dries , I can see where I want to put in some darker tones, to show where the petal is folded or in shadow.

 

5

.

 

Working through the tones step by step, standing back and really looking at what I need to change. It isn't an exact representation of the photo ( at all) but the reference photo helps me to see where the shadows lie. This piece is turning out to be much tighter than I anticipated, which is often the case with a new subject , you need to know a subject well before you can be very wild and free.I thinks it needs something to make it 'pop'

6.

 

So I decide to add a background. I put my darkest colours next to the lightest parts of the petals to really show the light. I love letting my imagination go a bit wild, and adding colours I just like, 

7.

 

And so my iris is finished, I like the way the yellow runs into the background, I like to let the watercolour do it's thing . 

Why not be inspired by what's around you and see what happens