Sunny Winter Blooms

Sunny Winter Blooms

in the snow in my yard in Shapleigh, Maine
on January 1, 2014, sketched on January 7, 2014
7" x 5", Winsor & Newton watercolors on 140 lb.
Strathmore Series 500 hot press archival watercolor paper

unframed, sold framed, $100 plus $5.50 sales tax plus $10 shipping

This is also online at the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge HERE
and this weeks Daily Paintworks The Summer in Winter Challenge HERE
Note:
This was the fifth sketch I did to get the feel of it right. I've been painting more representational than interpretive with the flowers, unlike the flow when I was painting the Monhegan series. I was filling in the lines, like a pictorial coloring book, not letting the brush make the lines. I worked through that. I painted two of one view before I realized that perspective wasn't going to work. Then I went on with this view and by the third one I was loose and confident with the brush strokes, back to where I want to be.

      The blue is no accident, a mix of Prussian Blue, Winsor Violet, with a touch of French Ultramarine, which is painted last with my biggest #20 round brush, my favorite part of the process. Before then it looked like nothing, but when the blue fills the space around the flowers and they take shape and the flowers pop, voilà; it reminded me of painting seagulls overhead in a blue sky and using the white of the paper and negative/positive space. In the practice ones I realized that I didn't need to lay on so much shadow, one of the things I reminded myself while getting loose and back in the groove.