Finishing the Daffodil with background

 Finishing the Daffodil

Painting flowers is a lot like acting on a stage. In order for people to see you from a distance, you need overdone make-up; you have to emote when speaking; you have to create the drama. When you paint flowers, you can't be afraid to make strong colors and contrasts to get your message across. So when I use purple to shade a yellow flower, that is what I am doing--

Working in negative painting

Make a dark green (I used Pthalo and quin gold) in a fairly thick mixture. If it is too watery, the value will never get dark enough to make a black.

Use this dark green to paint behind all the petals and leaves. I want the top and right side to gradually get lighter, so I am wetting that area more and letting the green mix become weaker in those spots. Let the water do the work. Dry this all completely. You need to be sure you are getting a dark green color.

Next make a dark red orange, in a heavier mixture.  Paint this orange over all the dark greens and places you want to be black. In the picture below, you can see how where I have painted the orange has become dark brown. I left a little green at the bottom so you can compare. Dry all the paint. (In place of orange, you can use burnt sienna with a bit of red in it)

Next make a dark violet mixture. Paint over all the areas you want to be black. I've painted the left hand spaces with violet, left one space with just green and orange, and the right spaces with just green so you can see the progression.

The order of placing the colors can be switched up. You can even use primary colors instead of secondary colors. I just like using secondaries better.

Finishing the petals

When you are satisfied with the background, remove all the masking. 

(I use a rubber cement eraser, very inexpensive, but you can use your clean fingers or masking tape rolled around a finger ) 

To be honest, I don't love using masking. I could have painted the flower first and then masked off the edges to protect them from the darker layers of paint. Masking can leave some very hard edges and look contrived.

With a small brush, paint in some yellows over the frills. If you have lost some of the shadows, make a watery violet, (or raw sienna) and paint over some of the shadows. Use this to create some shadows in the frills too. You can paint some fine lines for veins. In the trumpet of the flower, be sure that the veins curve with the shape of the petals, always radiating from the center.

Use the shadows to create a hard edge separating  the petals, so they stand out more. Apply your paint where you want it darkest, and then spread it out with clean water so you have no hard edges in the shadow.

Here I've removed masking and started to add some shadows in the frills. I've also darkened the shadows between petals.

Here I've added a few veins in the trumpet. I will also lift a little on the frilly edge of the trumpet. 

For the white flower, use your cobalt blue to darken the center. Water it down a bit to add light shadows in the frilly part of the trumpet.

To separate leaves, decide which leaf is forward and which is behind. The forward one casts a shadow on the one behind it. Where the two meet, darken the behind leaf to make a cast shadow, hard edges where the two meet, and softened on the behind leaf. Do this on each side where the two leaves/stems meet.

The final step is "lifting" with a stiffer brush. Please don't use your good brushes to lift. Find an inexpensive, stiffer brush (see the prior blog for suggestions) so you don't wear out your good tips.

Generally I use lifting for three things: 1, to soften a hard edge (like the Miskit); 2, to clean up edges and mistakes; 3, to lift a highlight to softly round an area. (like in this yellow bud)

I also use it, as in the picture below, to  "lift out" a few distant leaves just with a brush and some water.  (See the very dark but softened leaves in the background) You can't get this effect unless you paint your darks in layers. 

There is a brownish papery covering over daffodil stems near the flower. I just lifted a little and used some burnt umber, watered down over the area. I used dark brown for the tiny area at the top of this. 

I still have to finish the darks and clean up some edges, but it might look similar to this.

Daffodils are gorgeous, and there are so many right ways to do it, both loose and tight.

I chose this way to teach about using underpainting to get in believable shadows, and to teach how to get rich darks in a background.

Starting the Daffodil: underpainting, glazing, and negative painting

Daffodils: Two versions

Here are the sketches for the daffodils, one from my photo reference, and a more simplified version: fewer frilly ruffles, more simple petals.  Kier Insight Archives from Unsplash is where this reference is from. For reference for yellow colors I used Catrin Ellis photo from Unsplash.

 Simplified Sketch

More complex sketch

I had those who were doing the very dark background mask off the frilly edges with masking fluid, only because it is easier to keep the crisp edges after going over it with three or four layers of paint later.

(These have already been painted a bit so you can see better where I've put the masking fluid)

You can also put the masking over the edges AFTER you have painted in the yellows and dried them.

Put if you are not doing a background, no real need to mask.

The first order thing after masking is to underpaint the shadows in the flowers. Last week I tried different colors for this shadow, and chose raw sienna. I could also have used violet (very pale), ochre, or yellow mixed with a bit of violet.

I used cobalt blue for the shadows in the white flower and some of the shadows on the leaves and stems.

When those had dried I flooded the page with yellows, hansa light and new gamboge.

(If no background, just wet the flowers and lightly brush on yellow colors)

NOTE: Do this with a light touch. If you brush hard or over and over again, your underpainting may get lost.)

I also added in blues and greens in the leaf area, trying to get a variety of shades, because I am going to negative paint over those. Those who want no background or light background will put the leaves in with positive painting.

I built up the bottom part until I was happy with the color and texture. Then dried the entire painting.

I began negative painting to make the leaves stand out. I began with a dark green, but will build it up with other color later until I have a very dark background. 

Here is an effective way to build up blacks in a picture. You will see it at the top of this chart.

I used dark versions of every secondary color: orange, violet, and green. You can see I started with orange; dried that, then did a layer of green; dried that, then did a layer of violet; dried that. For the final layer I tried different darks: first sepia, then sodalite, then indigo, then Paynes gray, then pthalo. I lifted a line through the entire thing so you can see what colors will appear if you lift anywhere.

The bottom left shows two layers of different blacks. To the right of those is that black painted over different colors. Your underpainting determines the temperature and appearance of the black.

This chart is one you can make at home. The left side is under-painted with yellow, then glazed with violet. To the right of that square is yellow and violet mixed on the palette, with more emphasis on the yellow. Below that is an under-painting of violet, glazed over with yellow. The right of that is violet and yellow mixed on the palette, with more emphasis on the violet. They are labeled so that the first color in the label is the underpainting, and the second color is the glaze. I hope you can see the difference in effect of using a glaze.

You get a VISUAL or Optical mixing. 

Here I'm using a very dark green to negative paint around the leaf and petL shapes. Negative painting is simply painting what is not the object.

This green was french ultramarine with hansa

Later I'll continue painting layers of negative painting until I achieve a dark I like. More next time . 

Techniques to aid in flower painting

 There are four techniques that I consider helpful in flower painting. One is painting wet into wet and adding darker paint to edges; one is lifting to create highlights; one is underpainting the shadows; and one is lifting to soften edges.

Here is the reference photo for most of this lesson. 

Here is the simplified line drawing. The dotted lines indicate where the edge of an overlapping petal would be. I WANT the petals to appear to overlap.

The idea is to create the effect of transparency, as if you were looking at the light through the petals and could see each individual one. 

Make two puddles of color, one very light, and the other with much less water.

Wet one of the petals, including the part the overlaps another petal. 

With your bigger round brush (size 8) apply the pale colors. Make sure it is not too puddly, just shiny.

With a small, pointed brush, use the thicker consistency paint to paint around the edges of the petals while it is still damp. You should get a hard line where the dry edge is and it should spread where it touches the damp petal. 

Here is a really good video that gives the idea. It is from Liesl Arts. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WAgoSwOzt0

Emma LeFebvre also has one about layered transparent painting that is simple and fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ymuPJniZp8

Here is what mine looked like. To do the stems, loosen some of the paint from the flower and let it go into the ball shaped area at the bottom. Dry it. Wet the stem and sepals, drop in a green (mine is made from cerulean and new gamboge). Gently lift some of the paint from one side to create a a light. Then, one the other side, take some French ultramarine on a thin brush, and go down the side to create a shadow on one side. It's like what you did to the petals, only on one side instead of all sides.

We practiced using a lifting brush to blur some edges or lift color out to create a highlight.

The brushes I have for this are:

Winsor Newton Monarch filbert or flat, size 4 or 6

Zen Royal Langnickel flat size 6

I used to use the "scrubbers", shown at the top,  which come in a package with several sizes.

I use these only for really difficult patches, as they will remove the sizing of the paper more easily.

Next we tried "underpainting" a color in the shadow areas before glazing with the local color.

(That is the general color of the object)

Since we are doing daffodils, I wanted to show what colors would be good to use in the shadow areas of a yellow flower. In the chart below, you can see left to right:

violet (painted very lightly)

quin gold

burnt sienna

(next row) raw sienna

The daffodil is underpainted with raw siena

All are glazed over with hansa yellow and some new gamboge. In the corner is a demo of how to paint a black background, but that is another lesson.

The two I definitely have a preference for are the violet and the raw sienna.

People can also use yellow ochre. 

Yellows are particularly difficult to shadow because yellows don't get a very dark value on their own. If you try to darken it with a blue you get green (which is probably ok on a daff). Browns look a little dead.