Sunflower Fire

Sunflower Fire30x40cm soft pastel on sanded card.



 This painting is also from another challenge on Wetcanvas.com and thank you to Kay (KreativeK) for providing it.


I know I said that I was no longer painting with soft pastels, but I keep getting drawn back in to using them and the strong colours in the reference shouted soft pastels at me. I discovered some Sennelier fine sanded card in my cupboard which I had purchased way back and actually forgotton I had.
As usual, I started out by blocking in the lights and darks. I used Neocolor II soluble crayons as an underpainting. I've been using these a lot just lately regardless of medium, they have a lot of pigment in and I find that they give a very good underpainting. I usually use water to wash the pigment in, but then remembered the Sennelier surface doesn't like water, so I used alcohol instead. The wash came out darker than I expected it to and was not quite so easy to create as I am used to. Recently I have been using Fischer sanded card and this accepts water and my washes are normally lighter.

Sunflower Fire stage 1 -

I used cool colours for the shadows and lights for the highlights. In my florals I like to use yellow for underpainting my main highlights. I think you can see that the wash was not so successful on this ground and it looks very dark and messy.

 

Sunflower Fire - stage 2.

Blocking in with local colour - not looking quite so messy now.

 

Sunflower Fire - stage 3

More colour added - trying to find those subtle shifts of light and darks. Taking shape at this stage. 

Sunflower Fire - completed.

I continued layering colours and breaking up the blocks of colour until I was happy. I knocked back the background sunflower as it was competing with the star of the show. The final touches was the speck on the sunflower head, which I achieved by grating some yellow, dark red and orange pastel over it, covering it with a piece of paper and applying pressure to adhere the particles.

Visit my zazzle store to see products with this image

'Sunflower Fire' Poster by Marionsart
Browse all the art at Zazzle

 

Sunflowers Ceramic Coffee Mug by Marionsart
Design large coffee mugs with zazzle

Spring Jonquils

Spring Jonquils

25x32cm oil pastel on black somerset velvet paper.









The Floral and Botanicals forum of wetcanvas.com January challenge was to paint white flowers. One of the supplied references was a lovely photo of some white jonquils which I couldn't resist. Painting white flowers is quite a challenge for me as I find it extremely hard to get the right balance of white and shadows.
I have started painting in oil pastels instead of the soft pastels to avoid the dust created with the soft pastels. They act totally different to soft pastels and using them is a whole new experience. I really enjoy using them although I consider myself a newbie with them. 



This is my stage 1 where I block in the highlights and shadows with warm and cool colours.







This is stage 2 where I start changing the colours to look 'real'.

This is stage 3 where I look for the different light and dark planes in each block of colour and start the layering process to give a more 3D effect. I am using creams and whites for the highlights and blues and purples for the shadow areas. The flowers are starting to come alive now.


 Stage 4 is more layering, I go over some of the highlights with yellow covering that with more white. I also blend some areas to achieve a smoother change from the highlights to the shadows. After leaving the oil pastel to set for a couple of days, I then look at the painting to assess if there are any final changes needed. I changed the angle of a couple of the petals and layered more whites and blue in the shadows. Overall, I was quite pleased with the result.

Parrot Tulip Dance Pastel Painting

PARROT TULIP DANCE
Soft Pastel 40 x 60cm on wallis paper

This painting was created from a photo I took at a local village flower show. The flower show is an annual event and the whole village including the castle/chateau is festooned with flower arrangements. It really is a must to see if you are ever in the French riviera in April.

Following on from painting pastels the colourful way, I decided to try the technique on a flower subject and the vibrancy of these parrot tulips just cried out to be painted.

Step 1 - I drew the parrot tulips and blocked in with colour, using cold colours for the darks and warm colours for the lights.

Step 2

Overpainting the underpainting to make the colours 'look right'.

Definitely a strange looking stage.

Step 3

Dividing the blocks of colour into 3 or 4 areas and finding the light and dark planes.

Starting to look like the parrot tulip

Step 4

Is a continuation of step 3. Dividing each of the areas created in step 3 again into 3 or 4 and digging deeper to find the changes in plane and colour. Any detail is also added in this last step.