Wednesday, June 29, 2016


Painting flowers and enjoying a summer afternoon in my studio.  Love the Psalms and the messages they send to us. I thought I would share one that has been sitting on my desk along with a tutorial of a floral painting inspired by a photo.


Yellow flowers bring happiness and sunshine into our fields, gardens and into our homes.  But after the color fades and the flowers die out, we are only left with a memory.  By painting one of your own, the memory can last through all the seasons.

This is painted on a 8 x 10 wrapped canvas.  Using fluid acrylics and Extender.  The extender gives more freedom and softness to the flowers.  So, begin by washing colors into a wet background, moistened with retarder.  Then add a lacy stencil onto the foreground with light modeling paste and a palette knife.  

                               Begin blocking in the design using abstract shapes with Raw Sienna. 

Begin adding color and white highlights into the design and work loosely, while retarder is still moist.  Wipe brush off between colors and careful not to use too much water with the retarder!  

You can see that I used a reference photo in this image.  This is where to begin shaping the flowers and adding more contrast.  The more you add to a painting and remove, the more life your drawing will have.  So, I work back and forth between dark and light as I develop the painting.  

                                                         Building and Re-Building

As the retarder begins to dry, I use a little more water onto the brush.  At this stage, I like to let some of the colors run and slant my canvas to allow the paint to flow.  Some of it gets into the texture and creates more texture and interest.  I started to add pearls to this but removed them.  You can still see remnants of the area.  Not a bad thing!
I then went over some of the white and darkest ares of the flowers with pastels, just to brighten a little more.  The last thing is to add spray varnish when all is completely dry.  I used DecoArt media paints for this, but you can use any acrylic paint.  

Paint colors used are:  Primary Yellow, Naples Yellow Hue, Raw Sienna, Titan Buff, Sap Green and Titanium White.  DecoArt Media antiquing cream; Patina Green, Medium Grey and English Red Oxide.  Using them just like the other paints, but they have a creamier texture.  

                                       I do hope you enjoyed this quick little tutorial.  

Happy Painting!!
Ursula xo


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