I have a photo that I want to make a painting from. The photo is one my sister took of her passion flower. It is really cool looking and quite intricate. I have been trying for quite a while to figure out how I was going to do it because of the incredible intricate detail. About a month or two ago, when I decided I was ready to tackle it, I was looking at it closer and realized that because the subject has all these fine almost wispy details I was going to need to do the background first and lay the flower over the top of that. And here is the catch. The fine wispy like details are in white, bold white.
Needing to put white details over the background means watercolor is not my first choice. Though I have since thought of some ways I could do it, and that would be for another post if I decided to try it. At the time I started planning to do this passion flower painting the only viable answer I could think of was that it was going to have to be done in acrylic paints, or oil but we’ll skip oil conversation for now. I should be able to layer the white over the top of the background with no problems. So, in an effort to warm up to the acrylic paints I decided to return to working on a painting that I had started in acrylic and had sort of abandoned temporarily.
While the results that I have been getting have been good, that is really the only part of the experience that has been pleasant. I have not enjoyed working with the acrylic paints, either as heavy body paints or using the liquid paints that are more fluid. Some of the issue may be a lack of information, some may just be learning curve, and some, I suspect, may just be that it’s not my medium yet, and it may never be. And that’s ok.
What’s most interesting to me though is how trying to work on it so blocked me from working on anything else. See sometimes I’ll have more than one piece in the works at the same time. Especially if one is much larger so that it ends up on the big easel instead of the table. With this acrylic piece it just seemed to get in the way completely. I didn’t even do any sketching. And yet, I also wasn’t working on it regularly, or obsessively like happens with some pieces.
When I finally made the decision one evening to abandon it once again, it was like clearing a passage that had been blocked. Suddenly I was thinking of possibilities for a digital project I’ve been half working on. The next morning I cleared it off the table, put it aside completely and cleared up the paints and put them away. And as that passage started getting aired out from being blocked more possibilities started to occur to me.
I have another piece of art I want to make, this one from a photo I took in Germany. I started to think about how I would want to render that one. I could do it in watercolor, because I think I know how to do this one part of it that could be cool, or I could do it in soft pastel. I think I’ve almost committed to doing that in pastel. Almost. I’ve just finished a bunch of watercolor paintings and I was thinking it would be nice to do more which is why I haven’t committed to pastel completely, yet.
I have also chosen some Taekwondo photos to reference for another piece. Again, I’m between watercolor and pastel for them. Mostly because I kind of want to see if I can do one in watercolor and I also wonder what it would look like. Would it be as dynamic and would the cloth render up as nicely?
As I was cleaning up in the studio and deciding how to proceed, and get started on a new piece, because that is the hardest part, a thought occurred to me. I have this piece of Pastelmat that I got last year to try out. I started a to do a pastel painting of some tulips on it and then backed off because it was eating into my pastels so much. Anyway. I grabbed that piece and tested some marks of white over the green background using pastel pencil, and just like that I had the answer to how to do the passion flower. And, I happen to already have a larger size of Pastelmat to do it on because I recently bought some.
My recent trip to visit my sister included a side trip to an art supply store in Savannah, Georgia and one of the things that was on the shopping list was some Pastelmat. I have some pastel card from Sennelier and it works really well at holding onto the pastel, but it is a bit courser than Pastelmat and I wanted to give the Pastelmat a better try since I have gotten over being worried about how quickly it was eating through my pastels. And from some videos I’ve seen it looks like Pastelmat might be a little friendlier to pastel pencils than the pastel card I have. Fortunately the art store had a couple of pads of Pastelmat so I didn’t have to order it online. And that means, that I have what I need for the passion flower pastel painting.
It’s funny, even though I’ve figured out how to do the passion flower, I haven’t started it. I took that piece of Pastelmat that I was telling you about and decided to work on the painting that I started on it last year. It came together really quick and I really enjoyed the surface, Pastelmat. As I make a few more pieces of art using it I may have to make a post about it.
For now, I’ve got that pastel painting ready to sign and scan, and I’ve got several watercolor paintings to take off to the photographer. That will be a task for the new year. In the meantime, I’m working on another watercolor. It’s turning out to be not quite what I expected. I just have to be patient so I don’t get heavy handed and mess it up.
Oh, and I still have a video I’m working on editing of me doing work on one of the watercolor paintings. I’m not as excited about the video as I was when I started the project because the aspect ratio of it but since I have written about it, I will get it posted. The video thing may be another topic later on, once I work out what I like best.
That brings you up to date for the end of the year. I wish you good health, happiness, and good fortune for the new year. Cheers!