Beginnings

The snow has really melted as the tulip leaves continue to push up out of the ground.  For years I have photographed Tulips with the idea of one day painting a tulip series.  Recently I spent an afternoon going through my digital files, moving the tulip photos to one folder.  It is over 5 1/2 GB in size!  Lots of fun images and ideas to work from.  Starting to get very excited to see where this series will take me.

In the early 1990’s I felt that my paintings were not “arty” enough as people would see them and say, “oh that looks just like a photograph”.  I tried to loosen up and eventually this took me on a journey of discovery working in abstraction.  As much as love working in abstraction the tulips are calling to me.

 It is my preference is to work from photos/digital images inside my studio rather than the actual flowers as they change and light changes too quickly for me.  I may however push my boundaries and comfort zones as this series progresses.   For now I need to focus on getting that first tulip painting started.  The sketch that I posted a few days ago needed to be modified a little as I felt there was too much sky in the upper right section.  Made the change then sketched the image onto a full size sheet of  300lb Fabriano hot press watercolor paper after securing it with clear package sealing tape.  The fun begins!  A few years ago I won an award for one of my paintings at a Watercolor Society of Oregon Exhibition.  Part of the award was tubes of M Graham Artists Watercolors donated by M Graham in colors that were new to me.  I pulled those out and filled my pallet with these beautiful fresh colorful paints. Will be fun to play with these new colors as well as my favorites.

Beginning: Laying on the first color washes ( step 1 was the sketch )

 Layering in shadows, developing shapes, pattern and texture