Tag: painting from a photograph

Posted in painting

More 100 Day Project artwork

Posted on by Laura Kate

Okay, I’ve lost track of which day I am on. (6-10-23: it’s days 28, 29, 30 and 31.)

What I can say is that Bill has given me about a half dozen photos of dragonflies.

Here are five:

While I have an idea for making a wall hanging; quilted, embroidered, and with painted dragonflies; for now I’m painting postcards. The purpose is to warm-up and to break my funky creative block.

In the process I’ve discovered that painting these beauties is like eating potato chips. It’s hard to stop once you get started.

I’ve tried to keep the dragonflies light and loose. They are so jewel-like in real life, the painted versions are but a poor imitation.

Made on Fabriano Studio cold press using watercolors, a micron pen for linework and Dr Ph Martin’s bleed-proof white for some highlights. I experimented with a silver pen on no. 3, but the shiny bits never show up in a photograph.

Posted in painting

Watercolor Wednesday: Rust

Posted on by Laura Kate

This rusty car was our assignment at the art association open studio last Wednesday. I think I got a pretty good likeness of the photograph. The hardest part was deciding when to stop.

I used a palette of raw sienna, burnt sienna, cerulean blue, cobalt blue and ultramarine blue. Painted on Fabriano Studio cold press paper.

Posted in painting

Watercolor Wednesday – Not Wordless

Posted on by Laura Kate

I have just a few comments to make about this watercolor of a coleus plant.

The subject was chosen as I work to use my own photographs for reference images. The picture you see on my computer screen was taken in my laundry room. It has the best sunlight for growing plants. By aiming the camera down from above, I achieved a simple image very suitable for a small painting.

After sketching with Prismacolor water soluble pencils, I added green-gold, Thalo blue, unltramarine blue and quinacridone magenta to a 4×6 piece of Fabriano cold-press paper.

Posted in painting

Watercolor Jack

Posted on by Laura Kate

It’s been a very long time since I have seen one of these in the wild:

Photograph by Mitch Zeissler

When I was a child roaming the woods in Ohio, we called this plant Jack-in-the-pulpit. This very wonderful photograph brought back memories and enticed me to try a watercolor version of it.

Sketch and initial wash on the background.

Finished painting

Most of the paints were Daniel Smith, a few Winsor & Newton. I used yellow ochre, green-gold, Winsor green, ultramarine blue, carbazole violet, alizarin crimson and quinacridone red. I also placed a few dabs of white gouache. Paper is Fabriano Studio cold press.

Posted in painting

Watercolor Wednesday

Posted on by Laura Kate

I have been saving this image from Unsplash for the time when my skills were sufficient to paint it. I think I’m ready now.

There are several challenges:

  1. Painting the pink flower with shading and without losing its delicate transparency.
  2. Making the background black enough while keeping the crisp edges of the foreground.
  3. Rendering the texture of the leaf in the foreground

It took me a few days and several stages.

Pencil outline of the flower and underpainting of the leaves. I added some colored pencil on the foreground, but these lines completely disappeared under subsequent glazes.

Before I proceeded to the next layers, I reserved the edges by coating them with masking fluid.

First layer of paint on flower and background, second glaze on leaves.
Second layer of paint on flower and background. Once it dried, I rubbed off the masking fluid.

Final painting. To render the curves of the foreground leaf, I decided to add a dark color band which doesn’t exist in the original photograph. I used a blue Prismacolor pencil to draw in the delicate veins which are visible between the large ribs.

I like the glowing look of the flower. The crimson petal tips really come forward visually. I’m happy with the foreground leaf. I’m wondering if I need to darken the leaf in the background.

Maybe I will wait a day and see how I feel about it.

Painted on Fabriano Studio cold press paper with Winsor yellow, quinacridone magenta, alizarin crimson, prussian blue, viridian, gold green and sap green.