Today it’s been raining after a brief spell of sun. Not a bad thing though. The other day, our gardeners came to tend our garden and help prepare it for the warmer months when we will expect more green and colorful flowers to further bloom. And now our garden could do with a bit of rain to bring it all on! With the rain and dark clouds in mind, how about some colorful flower painting on black paper?
Stencil Art
Having taken a refresher class in stencil art a few weeks ago, I decided to give it a go again. A new product, which was a pad of black watercolor paper by Talens, was waiting to be tried on. It is one of those annoying but handy sketch pads which is glued on all edges so the paper won’t warp when painting. As such, I thought I would deal with that BEFORE painting by separating one of the edges by an inch with a cutter and sticking them back together with a masking tape. So far so good! And I was ready to start applying some mint green acrylic paint with a sponge roller. However, this paint was a cheap one I had bought at Action (Dutch equivalent of Target in the U.S.) so the quality was disappointing and didn’t roll as I wanted. Not to worry, I then mixed that with some Titanium White acrylic paint by Amsterdam Acrylic and then began rolling the paint over some stencils. Now we’re talking! Repeated this in random places over and over till I was happy with the layout.
Flower Power
Once I let the paint dry, I went ahead with painting some flowers! I sketched a few first with some white chalk pencil to get the composition as desired. A variety of flowery colors were selected here, including light pink, fuschia, fluorescent red and fluorescent pink, all acrylic paints by Amsterdam Acrylic or Sennelier. Some Daler & Rowney’s pearlescent yellow acrylic ink was later introduced to add some accent to the painting. I tried to keep the flowers as transparent as possible so the stencilled layers below can show through. I quite liked it as it was, but I was in the mood to experiment a bit more and see what else can be incorporated…
More Stencil Art!
And how about some green leaves? Green of course would be a perfect choice of color as it is a perfect contrast to the pink and analogous to yellow. I then combined some Holbein’s Emerald Green gouache and a bit of that cheap paint from Action (to thin the gouache down a bit) and applied the blend on a leaf stencil with a makeup sponge. The remaining paint was then gently patted around the top of the paper to give some balance. As a finishing touch, I added metallic purple gouache on the center of the big pink flower. Adding similar details to the other flowers was considered, but I decided against it not wanting to lose the transparent effect of them. And now I think I’m finished!
What an inspiring session this was! It is not often that I create a painting based on stencils like this. I wonder why I never ventured into it further before! Not to worry, I’m happy I discovered another method to create, and it’s always wonderful to try new things. The color scheme turned out rather well too, and I do love how the initial stenciled layers show through. Now I can fully enjoy my flowers both in the painting and in my garden and look forward to creating more colorful artwork!
My Kawaii Quarter 