First I tried to get back into painting by doing a FF challenge on one of the painting web sites that I'm on. It turned out just ok but at least got my brushes wet.
I like the colors and the blending, poor bee doesn't look much like himself, he he he
Then more time went by and a lovely lady by the name of Mollie put up a demo on painting a sunflower so I though aha just the ticket. I love sunflowers such happy flowers. So I tried to learn the technique.
Well, just couldn't get the dot technique but I was trying. I had another failure and almost gave up and then I worked on the following one. I still couldn't get the hang of the dots and just bringing water to the dots and letting the paint do its work. I sort of got it but wasn't getting the results I wanted. Then I reread the directions and tried some more and sort of got it but then couldn't resist just adding my own colors and idea to the sunflower. It wasn't the total looseness that I wished but satisfactory. I'm not comfortable having no drawing to go by and just trying to do the drawing with the paintbrush other than a bit in the center. Also struggled with my leaves, definitely need much more practice on this technique but a lot of folks had very kind encouraging comments on my painting. I used mainly Daniel Smith paints (really love them) and a few Michael Grahams that I still have left. Painted 10x14 Arches 140# block. Think I will try this again on a larger sheet and see if I can't paint larger and looser.
The other thing I tried was a demo I had found online of Fantasy Flowers and it also helped me climb out of my blockage to painting. In this you just put on paints and kind of shape a vase, again no drawing, and then use ink pens to pen in some suggested flowers; then use colored WC pencils and add some shading. This is how far I am with this. Kind of fun and that's what painting should be about.
And a close up
So now am going to try and finish paintings that I've started and if I can't get inspired by that I will flip the paper over and do something else on the back.
