Autumn Florals

It has been a rather sombre mood this week due to a family bereavement.  Boyfriend’s dad had just passed away a little over a week ago.  Last Saturday was the funeral, which went very well with lots of people showing up: family, friends and those who knew him in the town he was residing.  He was apparently quite well known and liked in the community but he never bragged about it.  That’s what I liked about him.  At the funeral were lots of beautiful flowers.  His wife, that is my boyfriend’s mum, loves flowers and is quite knowledgeable about them.

Triad Colour Scheme

I love flowers too, but unfortunately, I’m not good at keeping them alive.  So I draw them instead.  Nothing fancy, and quite simple in fact.  I also love colours.  Flowers with pretty colours for one.  As such, I like to study about colours and how to use them in harmony.  I looked at the colour wheel and discovered about triad colour scheme.  That is, three colours on the wheel that are evenly spaced and form a triangle, as per the below image (downloaded from the internet and credit to Color Wheel Artist).

Purple Background

With colour play in mind, I was interested in creating a painting using a purple/violet background which I don’t get to do often.  I am more used to making my backgrounds green or blue, if not blank, and thought I’d come up with something different.  This time, I also wanted to make my drawings larger so grabbed my Marabu Mixed Media sketchbook.  The paper was then coated with gesso since I find it rather porous despite it’s thickness and used for mixed media purposes.  For the gesso, I decided to add some colour by mixing some white gesso with a few drops of some purple watercolour “ink” (Dr. Ph Martin’s Hydrus liquid watercolour).  When I applied this gesso using a wide brush with short hard bristles, I ended up with some interesting streaking patterns.  I then thought I’d add some bubble wrap prints and spread a little bit of violet acrylic ink.  Looks cool now!

Orange Flowers, Green Leaves

Next came the exciting part.  Painting the flowers in!  I used a series of orange paints, including Dylusions paints in Tangerine Dream and Squeezed Orange, followed by a tube of fluorescent orange by ArA.  It was all done freehand with no pencil outlines!  For some flowers, I mixed the orange with some titanium white.  Leave, of course, were green including Dylusions paints in Cut Grass and Polished Jade as well as fluorescent green scattered around the painting.  It was all the matter of evenly distributing the different types of orange and greens to make the whole painting look colourful yet in harmony.  And here it is!

Applying the triad colour scheme was indeed a very good idea.  Autumn is also approaching, and purple and orange are quite appropriate.  The orange does pop out wonderfully with the purple background.  Also, I was in the subdued mood in terms of colour given the passing of boyfriend’s dad.  If only I could show him.  I think he would like it.  I would definitely like to use this idea of triad scheme in future paintings, perhaps with other combinations too!