Flower Frenzy

Getting into the mood for pretty flowers, I bought a book called Painted Blossoms by Carrie Schmitt. I liked getting ideas and inspiration from the various artists featured in it but from that develop my own thing. So how about that I designed an-all blue background using drops of Ecoline liquid ink (#579, #580, #661) and doodling some flowers with Cray-Pas Expressionist Oil Pastels in Pale Blue and Cobalt Blue Hue.

My plan was to paint more flowers on top of that background with acrylic paint. However compared to my previous mixed media work, I preferred to maintain the background as is and not paint over it entirely. Just some flowers. As such I was aiming for a semi-transparent look (rather than transparent) so I figured mixing the paints with thickening media like modeling or molding paste would be an idea. Besides they add some interesting texture. I used some of Golden’s Coarse Molding Paste with Vermillion and Permanent Blue Violet paints for the centre bits of flowers

Then for the petals I used a less coarser texturiser (Modelling Paste). It just gives a more finer sand feel. Also it was purely an experiment to compare the differences between the two pastes. I used this modeling paste with Magenta and Azo Yellow Lemon. For the yellow, though, I felt it was way too light but I didn’t want to darken it. The only way was to brighten the colour so I combined it with fluorescent yellow!

I was trying to decide whether to add more flowers also with another medium like ink but came up with the idea of adding stems and leaves as the painting was lacking in some green. Here I used different shades of acrylic green such as Permanent Green Deep, Permanent Green Light and Yellowish Green.

But I felt some spaces could have still been filled in. And here is where I came across the idea of adding some cute flowers and buds in the form of origami paper collages! I found a pretty patterned paper and cut out some flower shapes. First draw the desired shape on the back of the origami paper and then cut out carefully with razor cutter.

Now that’s much better!! And now add some details by adding some veins in the leaves with a green gel pen (got mine cheaply at the local supermarket). I also added some little dots on some petals and stems. I like the Uni Posca Paint Markers because coming in white and pastel shades too, they really stand out even on top of paint. And here it is:

Another painting that’s also different to my usual style of being kawaii. But then again I also like pretty things like flowers and bright vivid colours. It’s also fun getting inspired by my environment and exploring the possibilities to express myself. And experimenting of course.