Hello there,
Today I got an e-mail saying “Resistance is a negative force within us that stops us from actually doing what we really want to do.”. This is taken from a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I didn’t read the book, the e-mail I got was suggesting me to read this book. I have never been a fan of personal growth books, so I don’t know if I will ever buy the book but the sentence above lit the fire today to make me paint something.
I found a picture of a balloon flower. (I couldn’t find the name of the person who took the picture, but I am thanking him/her from here.) I don’t have the expensive material to paint, so instead of hot pressed 100% cotton paper, I used my cold press, dumb, watercolor paper. Colors just stuck on the surface and ends up with a dirty look. I love when the painting is smooth but there is no way to manage it on cold paper or I am not talented enough.
Anyways I was in a mood today that nothing could stop me paint something. I made a promise to Paul’s flower loving grandma a while ago that I will paint something for her. Therefore this painting will go to her.
I prepared a detailed drawing of the flower first, then I used a play dough looking eraser to make the lines fainted. I don’t know what is the actual name of that eraser.
After these, I prepared my color. I used winsor, indigo and rose first. It turned out way too dark. Then I prepared a new mixture with only ultramarine deep and rose. This ultramarine deep color is new in my palette. It is a Van Gogh brand which was on sale, that’s why I bought. Normally my colors are Winsor&Newton. They are fairly expensive but even little amounts of paint goes a long way. Anyways, this new color worked with rose and I found the color close enough the picture.
I painted the darkest areas first, left the white areas untouched. It is important to work on the whole picture while painting, to keep the layers equal and balanced. Otherwise, you end up painting one area way too much than the other area.
While painting I was like, I hate you cold press paper. However, when you think about it, it is actually good to have these around. Especially for making presents. I complain a lot about this paper but actually it turned out pretty sweet. I completed this one in 4 hours. Normally a painting can take days. Here is the end result;
It was a nice, short exercise for me. If you have questions, please write down below. I would love to hear what you think too.
Have a nice day guys!
Art in Nature 