Flowers in Fields
Zooming out
A few months ago I sat in on a virtual online class through the Tucson Botanical Garden1 for a “Fall Flowers” workshop. There was a lot of good info, but I didn’t have enough time during the session to finish the sketch. Here is my work in progress:
A few days later I also attended a “Flowers in Fields” workshop locally.
Instead of focusing on the intricate details of flowers up close (like we did in an earlier workshop), we were learning how to work with flowers when surrounded by greenery, or how to focus only on a small area within a larger structure.
Most of the following were practice pages for technique practice rather than finished pieces.
While on a flower kick I tried out a few more practice sketches in my sketchbook.
Finally, I did these (below) in anticipation of Valentine’s Day. I’m not a big Valentine’s Day fan, but the school asked for families to bring in a card to be read out loud in class. It was a good excuse to clean up my desk, pull out the space heater (why did it take me this long?), and start painting again. I heard from one of the teachers that the mini flowers were much appreciated, and it made me feel good to do them myself.
The Process:
To execute this, I printed some reference images of wildflowers that I found around the web. I painted directly onto a pre-folded Strathmore watercolor paper card that I purchased at a craft thrift shop.
I taped a box in the middle and free-hand painted small blobs around the border, starting with colorful petals, then adding the interiors and last adding the stems and leaves. I mostly used round brushes size 3, 4, and 5 - a bit smaller than my usual paintings.2
Once it was dry enough to pull up the tape, I wrote their names in the center with a Prismacolor Brush Marker (B) pen.
I’d say they turned out better than expected for a first try. I’m excited to try more of these as spring comes. Reviving “the art of letter writing” is one of my goals for this year, so why not try making some of the cards in addition to the words?
I liked that they were small with minimal detail - it made the project quick and attainable.
Have you incorporated flowers into any of your creativity recently? Join the chat to share your work!
Most sincerely,
Lana K.
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TBG online classes are available to anyone!
I typically paint with brush sizes closer to 8, 10, and 12ish.