White Lily

Here is my completed White Lily. I touched up the colors a little bit and I added some white gouache to the petals. I have enjoyed sharing painting this picture in stages and sharing it with you. It will make it's debut at the Stockley Gardens Art Festival this weekend. It is in Ghent, Norfolk close to the Children's Hospital. The festival runs on Saturday October 16th from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and on Sunday from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm. The weather should be good and it is a really nice show. So hopefully I will see you there.

I have finished my large painting and it will also be in the show. I am overall pleased with the results. I will post it next week.

White Lily WIP 3

Here is the next phase of my White Lily. I painted the leaves and decided the background needed to be darker. I had thought about adding some mid ground but decided the Lily can stand on it's own. I photoed the painting indoors so the colors are not as bright as they would be in the sunshine. But alas there is very little sunshine out right now. I do think the colors are blending together better than before. I just need to work on the details and clean it up a little and then it will be done.

I'm spending a great deal of my time working on my large painting for Stockley Gardens. Some days I like the way it is going and other days I am a little frustrated. When I start a painting, I have a vision of what I want it to look like. Sometimes the painting comes out just that way. (Like the White Lily is coming.) Other times I just cannot capture my imagined version. The painting can find a vision of it's own that is very satisfying or it just does not work. I feel like I am on the fence with this painting and I'm just not sure what direction it is taking me!!!

I think that I'm getting a little tired of painting flowers. Just like I had become tired of painting fish. I just don't know what I'll work on next.

White Lily WIP 2

I worked on the White Lily last Sunday at the Artistic Creations classroom but then I forgot to photo the painting at that stage. So here is the next stage.

The leaves still need another layer or two. I think that the colors will work together a little better then. And I'm not sure about the background. I think I might need to make a mid-ground or maybe I just need to make it darker. Then I need to finish up the details and shadows as well as cleaning it up. I'm pretty happy with the Lily itself except it looks like it's floating a little bit. And it is looking almost white isn't it?

I have to get working on it some more as well a working on my large painting for Stockley Gardens.

I'm putting in my first full week of teaching and I'm really feeling exhausted. But I will get back in the groove once I get used to the schedule. (This also means going to sleep earlier to get up in the am!)

White Lily WIP

This is the first stage of painting a white lily that we are working on in my Watercolor Class at the Classroom in the Art Space in Pembroke Mall. I am changing the day of the class to Saturday on October 2nd. It will be from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. I will have a class on every Saturday in October except for October 16th as I will be at the Stockley Garden Art Show that weekend.

Tomorrow Sunday September 26th, I will be at the monthly Open House for the Art Space and I will be demonstrating the White Lily as well as a large painting that I'm working on for Stockley Gardens.

I have just moved many of my paintings into Artistic Creations also at the Art Space at Pembroke Mall. I will be painting there Saturday afternoons after the art class.

The white lily is a study in painting white. I have begun by putting in very "light" colors to shape the flower. Tomorrow I will put in some slightly darker colors into the flower and start working on the stem, bud, leaves as well as the stamens. Then, in the next class, I will put in the background in a significantly darker color mixture that will make the white flower pop. The final step will be to add a little bit of white gouache to capture some of the details.

I really want to work on painting it now and can hardly wait to paint it! But I need to wait until tomorrow or else I'll have to paint another!

Hope that I'll see some of you in the near future.