How to paint flowers like you mean it!By now the excitement of painting these beauties have your heart racing with anticipation. You set them down on your favorite side table, turn on your clip on spot light and adjust it just right. You then view the start of your creation and drink in the gorgeousness that sits before you,… but then suddenly, you freeze. Do you have a flower painting completed, and need a place to show it off? How about a free critique, or an interesting story around a painting you cherish? I now got a place just for you! Now, back to the story!... All these flowers, all these pedals, all these stems and leaves, oh no! Do you really know how to paint flowers like this? You feel the first wave of fear and anxiety creeping in. Your breath becomes short and shallow. How could you have even thought of trying to tackle such a difficult painting? You worry that they’re already wilting from the heat of the lamp. They appear to begin to droop and fade right before your eyes!...... Relax, it’s just a story.. Take a deep breath, in with the good….out with the bad…Now, read on and enjoy! I will explain to you in an easily understood approach on how to eat this elephant. One little bite at a time! So lets get started, and don’t worry about the bouquet, just keep that water mister close by and every few minutes give ‘em a good spray. Get out that plastic composition template I told you about here Composition Template and get a rough estimate of where your main blossoms are gonna be. Select 1 or 3 to be your main focal point. Get out your digital camera and get to clicking. Taking shots from above the table edge, straight on to the table edge, and below the table edge. Then readjust your lighting from the ¾ position (3/4 of subject illuminated from the left) to a position almost at 90 degrees to the subject on the left. Again taking pictures from the top side, and lowering your camera until you’re below the table edge. Finally, move your lighting to illuminate from above the flowers (straight overhead) and shoot several shots. This will give you a total of at least 9 perfectly great paintings within your camera! Now, go about transferring those images to your canvas.
(click here to get idea’s on how this is done)
From here, you will follow the Flemish Technique to complete your painting. Remember, you start with your pencil drawing, then the ink overlay. The imprimatura, umber under-layers, the color layers, and finishing layer. Having said all that, lets discuss some basics on how to paint flowers rules for you to think about before you really get started.
Going back to these basic underlying structures, flowers will usually conform to 4 basic shapes! * The disk shaped, like the Daisy. Just remember a tea saucer that is round and the pedals will radiate from the center of the saucer. When viewed on an angle, the saucer then becomes elliptical. An exception to this rule would be the closed or early partially opened disk-shaped blossom. It will tend to be coned shaped.
Speaking of three dimensional, let’s talk a little about form, Illusionist Form. Visit here (link to illusionist form description) to get a more detailed and picture of what we are explaining. Within each of these shapes will be form. Each blossom will have its’ own individual highlight, main light, half shadow, shadow, reflection, cast shadow. Let’s talk about the bouquet as a whole now. Flowers in the back of the arrangement will have less intensity, more grey, less focus and sharpness. Flowers at the front of the arrangement will have more color, intensity and sharpness. Your focal blossoms will have the highest color intensity, sharpness and details. So don’t sweat trying to copy each and every pedals on those back blossoms, they need to recede into the back of the picture plain anyway.
Hopefully, with this lesson on how to paint flowers, you now have a few tools in your bag to tackle the task of a full bouquet of flowers for your next painting project. Just remember, break it down to small steps. Visualize the basic geometric shapes of the blossoms. Stick to the rules of depicting form within each of those blossoms. Use the Flemish technique, and you too will know how to paint flowers like you mean it! Then lets take a short break and slip out to my favorite coffee shop. Seriously, If we were to meet someplace, like a Starbucks, or a Barnes & Noble store, and began to discuss your art travels, and I had the time to explain to you this technique in person, would you buy me a cup of coffee? If you've enjoyed these wonderful lessons, and you feel like you'd like to keep me juiced up to give you more fantastic information about this wonderful past-time, then go ahead, buy me a small cup of coffee! Click on the cup It's only $2! Now if you'd really like to keep me talking, and divulge all the studio practices I follow, give you incite into all the steps I take to create my art, would you buy me a whole pot? The coffee shop that we are in only charges $5, and I'll stay here with you for hours! So, what do you say? Click on the pot! You will be helping me to keep this information flowing! Thanks! back to top of "How to Paint Flowers"
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