Painting Close to Home

I have a neighbor down the street that always has these amazing Irises.  It was a great opportunity to paint and isolate.

There is a home that has these awesome Irises.  It was a great place to paint for the day.  There were very few people out on the street.  I have just started wearing headphones while painting.  These headphones help keep people from talking to me about painting.  I have always made time to interact with anyone who approaches me.  I love painting with my music cranked up.  

I pulled together my composition from this group of Irises.  The size of my paper was not wide enough to paint this scene the way that I wanted so I edited out the stuff that I did not think was critical.

I started the painting with the placement of the flowers because they were the most important part of the painting.  I wanted to make sure that they enough space.  I then created the shapes of the leaves of the Irises.  I then washed it out so there was only a suggestion of the shapes of the leaves.  

I then tried to suggest the darker areas of the painting while deconstructing the painting even further.  The process of deconstructing the painting helps me move through the painting quicker.  The first deconstruction of the under painting helped me establish the composition.  The second deconstruction helped establish the value plan.

Here I re-establish the location of the Irises.  

At this point I am introducing the colors of the Irises

Here I paint the shapes of the leaves of the Irises.

I cut in some negative space to provide a counter point to all of the detail within the painting.  I continue to make adjustments to the shapes and colors within the painting.

This was a very quick painting.  It took two hours from start to finish.  

The finished painting. 21"X 27". Mixed media water color under painting with pastel.

The value shot reveals the overcast light that day.

The detail shot.