Happy Earth Day - Wildflowers

Wildflowers at Raven Run Nature Sanctuary

Spring is finally here and with spring comes wildflowers galore at the Raven Run Nature Sanctuary in my area of Kentucky. I love to get out and create plein air studies of the Blue-eyed Mary's - a very little but very prolific wildflower that carpets the forest floor. As you can tell by the above reference photograph they don't show up very well, so plein air sketches are essential.

Raven Run Wildflowers - plein air

This lesson starts with a sketch of the basic shapes and then watercolor wash for the underpainting. I actually did 2 layers of watercolor to control the color and the rhythm of the piece. If I like the underpainting I'm off to a much better start.

Watercolor underpainting on UArt 400 grit sanded paper

Next I add the first layers of pastel - keeping in mind it's better to start dark and go to lighter colors later. I like starting with the sky and background trees as that sets the overall color bias - in this case a slight overcast pinkish hue. 

I've found that with these little wildflowers it's best to create the under color of the flowers first - the greens - and then add the blue, lavender and white flowers later.

 

Continue building up the layers of color. The very tiny flowers give the impression of carpeting the forest floor so my approach is to not try to paint individual flower - that would be crazy - but add a layer of color to resemble a carpet of color. The best way to view the scene, while I'm actually there, is to blur my eyes and see the color shapes, lights and shadows.

More layers of color adjusting the shadow and light shapes to create the best impression of the scene. Blue-eyed Mary's look like tiny violets with the top 2 petals white and the bottom 3 petal periwinkle blue. At a distance they have a lavender tone. Also in the forest are purple larkspur, pinkish phlox and yellow wood poppies.

Final steps for "Raven Run Wildflowers"

Choosing Photographs and Cropping

Photograph of Raven Run Creek in early spring

What do I look for when choosing photographs as reference for studio paintings?
1) Does the photo "ring my bell?"
2) What's the essence of the image? Can cropping the photo produce a better focus for that essence?
3) What's the composition and can it be improved by cropping?
4) Keep in mind 
• Shapes • Values • Color • Composition

The top photograph is from Raven Run Creek in the early spring with the creek being the main focus. 

The next photograph is cropped so the main focus is light on the big sycamore tree with the little waterfall as a secondary focus. (Ignore the weedy brush overlapping the sycamore tree. It's not important and it takes attention away from the light on the edge of the tree.) 

Here's the plein air oil painting from my trip to Raven Run.

This is the studio pastel painting with the Raven Run Creek as the main focus. But there's strong light on the sycamore tree so the focus on the creek is diluted. Is that what I wanted?

This one is a pastel of the close-up of the sycamore tree and the reflections on the water. While working on this one I reduced the brightness on the waterfall and the reflections to keep the viewer's eye on the light on the edge of the sycamore tree.

It's not that one is better than the other, but that the focus is different and you, as the artist, need to figure out when observing a scene, "What am I interested in?" You can get multiple paintings from one photo by cropping.