The sun is out and my tulips have bloomed.
The new Blumex Parrot Tulips turned out to be exactly what I had ordered.
They have been a delight to watch bloom and to photograph for future painting reference! Very Inspiring!
On Monday, I rehung my artwork at Art & Soul Gallery in Ashland, Oregon – here is my new display.
“Awakening”
watercolor 29 x 21″
The interview about myself as an Artist that David Nienow produced for the Rogue Valley TV Show, Rogue Artisans & Crafters, is now available online for viewing. Click Here to View
This spring has had some exciting weather!
From beautiful crisp and warm sunny days to stormy rains and snow.
Everyday I take a walk outside in my yard to see the growth of the green things and flowers.
The newly planted tulips are up and beginning to color on their buds.
Watching these tulips grow everyday is an exercise in patience as I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to see them bloom!
In the meantime I have been distracted from working on the large tulip painting that I have written about.
This is easy for me to do as I generally have many projects that I am involved in at the same time.
In addition to that, I have a number of painting”starts” from demonstrating experimental techniques in my art classes just waiting to be finished.
Here are two of those “starts” that I just finished.
“Blossoms In A Breeze” – Watercolor 10 x 13″
“Relationships”- Watermedia 14 x 21″
Working on my “Tulips” series I did start and ended up finishing this large abstract watercolor titled “Tulip Time”
“Tulip Time” – Watercolor 29 x 21″
Recently, I was interviewed on behalf of Art & Soul Gallery by David Nienow for his Rogue Artisans and Crafters Show that airs on RVTV.
Was a fun experience and nice representation for Art & Soul Gallery!
Click here to view the Show
There will be an upcoming episode featuring myself as an artist.
I will keep you posted!
Happy Spring!
The first of this years tulips have begun to bloom at Raven House!
These bulbs were purchased in Holland many many years ago, a gift from my parents.
After a week of warm weather snow returned … what a crazy spring!
The tulip painting that I am working on is coming along slowly and I will post about it again soon.
In the meantime some people were having difficulties subscribing to this blog.
With the help of my incredible webmaster, Shane Greenslate, this blog is now using the MailChimp service.
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“A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone.
It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose.
It doesn’t have to. It is different.
And there’s room in the garden for every flower.”
brush pallett paint for tulip – Lynda Hoffman-Snodgrass
Love my messy watercolor pallet, so many fun colors that can be created! The little dishes are for creating pools of color that I will be using for the entire painting. At this time the only brush that I have used to paint on this tulip painting is a Cheap Joes #12 Round Golden Fleece Synthetic Watercolor Brush. The substrate is a full sheet of 300lb Fabriano Artistico Watercolor Paper. I will post the paint colors later with the companies that manufacture them.
Here are some photos to show you the progress made since my last post.
Tulip step 6 – Lynda Hoffman-Snodgrass
Wanted to share with you some of the layering process that I use. You can see that I have laid in the light washes where the lightest color will be then move to the medium and dark tones.
Tulip step 7 – Lynda Hoffman-Snodgrass
Tulip step 8 – Lynda Hoffman-Snodgrass
I choose to cut in with rich darks under the right petal of the main tulip to help pop the flower into the foreground. It seems a little drastic right now with the white paper next to it. but once color is filled in on the petals I think it will look fine.
Tulip step 9 – Lynda Hoffman-Snodgrass
The background and middle ground seem pretty complete to me now. I find my eye travels around the painting nicely. May go back in and tweek it later, but for now I am ready to start work on the main tulip. Feeling both excited and anxious about pulling this painting off. I will start with the lower left petal as it is tucked behind the one that I will probably paint last which is closest to the viewer.
Tulip step 5 – Lynda Hoffman-Snodgrass
Quietly in my studio, these tulips are coming to life. Working in small sections at a time my plan is to fill in all but the main tulip first.
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 )
Tulip step 2 – Lynda Hoffman-Snodgrass
Layering in shadows, developing shapes, pattern and texture
Tulip step 3 – Lynda Hoffman-Snodgrass
Just as I was getting excited about starting this “tulip” series the snows came.
It has continued to be cold and snowy all week. Too cold to work up in my studio.
The tulips however don’t seem to be fazed by this cold, the leaves are continuing to push up out of the ground!
This inspires me.