Fun with Flowers and Photoshop

I've been painting with watercolors for the past two weeks because of some illustration work that I'm doing. I forget how much I enjoy it.  These two florals are painted from single flowers that I      photographed for reference from my garden and then assembled in Photoshop......just playing. I'll try and do more while the garden has this variety available to me.  There are the Hosta flowers, yellow Rudbeckia's, Dahlias and Cosmos with a few nasturtium too.  I must get some lillies in there next time.

The grouping on the left was simply assembled in various layers playing with the hue, saturation, rotation and scale.  The same flowers were grouped differently on the right and had some additional filters applied which seemed to enhance the water-colour effect.

So Many Lillies So Little Time

Yellow Daylilly

6" x 6" Oil on 1.5" wood panel

This is the month for it.  I like the orange daylillies as much as the cultivated ones that I've purchased from garden nurseries and may try to do one of those and if it's not too late, I may still have some damask lilies to paint as well.  They're a lovely burgundy color and look more substantial than the usual ones.  Wasn't sure if I wanted to leave in the solar garden light in the image above but I figured it blended in with the background so well that I decided to keep it in.

Spring back.......

Red Tulips

6" x 6" x 1.5" Oil on wood cradled panel

This really should be in the Spring lineup but I really felt like painting something red.  I find it difficult to paint anything red because it is so vibrant.  On the up side you really get to know your paints a little better while searching for whatever it takes to bring up that vibrancy.  Primary red, permanent rose and here's where I had a bit of difficulty and that was to have found a very cool red, a magenta that tinted to almost a blue for some of the cooler hilites.  

My posts have slowed down a bit but that doesn't mean I'm not painting.  An illustration job that segued into a series in water-colour that I've been wanting to do for a long time now has been wrestling for my attention to these little small format oils.  So I may just sprinkle a few of these other mediums in among my postings.

I did warn you in previous posts that my titles are terrible.  I couldn't resist the reference to harkening back to a spring theme by calling this post "Spring back....." ok, I think I'll move on now.....

subject

Green Apple on Blue Gingham

I guess I do enjoy painting in the little squares on this blue gingham cloth since this is my "go to" set up fabric.  There is something pleasant about the blue/green combination too that looks fresh.

Green Apples on Blue Gingham

6" x 6" x 1.5"

Oil on wood panel

You may see this little set up repeated in the near future because it is the lower part of a composition I photographed a year or two ago that includes a vase with hydrangeas and a blue bottle.  At first the little florets of the hydrangea seemed daunting but I've done it before and was happy with the results so I'm encouraged to do this flower again.