Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Holly Berries


Here are my completed Holly Berries. Just in time for the holidays! In the first picture you can see that I took out the upper right leave to be repainted. I just did not like the shape or size of it so I decided to take it out and redo it. I also continued adding more greens and reds. My first background was in a lighter color scheme but I didn't like that either. So then I made the background darker and it really make the foreground pop. Then I continued working the leaves and the berries just darkening some areas so that the light areas look lighter and brighter. See how shiny the leaves and berries appear in the final picture.
I think that you can still appreciate the first colors that I painted in the final picture after putting many layers over it. It is in the nature of transparent watercolors that allows you to accomplish this look.
As I mentioned before there were a couple things that I was not pleased with in the process of creating this painting. This happens often enough. The longer I work with watercolors the easier it is to see what I feel needs to be changed to improve the painting and find the way to do it.

4 comments:

jyothisethu said...

the experiment worked...

the background you have chosen is perfectly apt for the picture...

congratulations...

Kathy Staicer said...

Thank you so much. I love painting dark backgrounds!

Meera Rao said...

the play of dark, lights and whites are really beautiful!

Kathy Staicer said...

Thank you Meera. I always appreciate your support.