Sunday, December 7, 2014

Valérie M. - "Zen flower"


Paragraph 1  : I always draw and paint directly from the picture on my computer or my Ipad. I work with a mechanical pencil 2B on watercolor paper 300g, trying to do some contour drawing, without erase any line. Mistakes and bad strokes are sometimes interesting and bring some live in the finished painting.


Paragraph 2 : I start my painting with some dark values on the petals, always dry on dry, trying to find immediately the good color and the right value.  I add some water near the dark value to let the pigment flow in for the remaining petal area. 


Paragraph 3 : At this stage I was within a hair's breadth to put my painting in trash... Not satisfy with the shape, the values and the spirit which I would like to pass on in the painting.
I take a break.... ;o)


Paragraph 4 :  Some shadows added, some pencils strokes underlined, some colored  and contrasting shapes and splatters to loose up my mind and my finished painting ! Not very proud of it, but I spent a good moment, it's the most important : the pleasure of painting, without stress; after all , it's only a sheet of paper  and a little bit color !!!!

4 comments:

Helen said...

Gorgeous finished water lily! I can totally relate to Paragraph #3 when you can't seen anything good happening then quit for a while. In the end... really, really nice job.
Thanks for sharing your process.

Terri Einer said...

Lovely interpretation!

Shirley said...

I think it's a great painting and I work almost the same way get somewhat discouraged somewhere along the way!!

painting in tuscany said...

Beautiful painting!
And it was interesting to read about your painting process. I often tend to overwork mine - maybe satisfied in the beginning, and later find it's too heavy... -but your painting is light and fresh all to the end!
Sabine