Flowers in the Water

After a hectic but productive few days, we were at last able go for a leisurely stroll last Sunday to the neighboring village and back. Highlight was noticing flower bouquets mysteriously flowing down the stream one after another like it were a procession. Some got seperated and scattered, whilst others remained grouped together. We’re still wondering why but it’s definitely done by someone. Later, I realised it was 11 September then which may have been the reason, although we are not sure as this flower procession happens to be in a small village the Netherlands. Perhaps someone from the area may have been one of the casualties, who knows. Whatever the occasion, it was quite a serene moment watching these flowers make their way along the water. And what an impression it made which of course inspired me to paint about it!

Sketchbook Drawing

Once I got home, I fished out my Strathmore’s Sketchbook and decided to doodle a bit on the spread of two pages. A simple pencil sketch was then followed by tracing over with Faber Castell’s Pitt Artist’s Pens which come in a wide range of colors.

Flowers

Next I colored in the flowers and added some details once again with the Faber Castell’s markers. Wonderful markers they are, as they are made from India Ink and are hence permanent and water-resistant so will not smudge if you want to combine your work with watercolor. The flowers in reality were not abundant as in the drawing, as they were flowing in single files with spaces in between. Being merely inspired by it, however, I expanded my ideas further and decided to add more in terms of quantity and variety. So far, so pretty!

Background and Finishing Touches

I usually paint the background first before I color the subjects, but this time I did just the opposite. Having found some leftover watercolor in the dishes, I thought it would be a good idea to use some of them all up. The stream of course was filled in with blue, whilst the land in green with brown borders. So great to recycle old paint! Once dry, I went over the flowers with the markers and introduced a bit of Ecoline Ink and gel pens to enhance the flowers and make the grass area fuller. And here we are now!

What an inspiring session this was! This time, I did not embellish the drawing with my usual glitter, shine and textures. Reason is that I would like to create a canvas version of this theme when I could then freely play around with textures and shine at my heart’s content! This is merely a sketch of my first impressions of the flowing flowers and just, excuse the pun, testing the waters to see how else I could develop my ideas. Glad it’s working, and I am definitely up for producing both a digital painting and a canvas version soon. Looking forward to that!