Flowers and Florals

Last January I was seeing quite a few paintings featuring white flowers.  It seemed to be a January "thing" and I wanted to try a bouquet with white flowers.  I was going to buy a bunch and try a watercolor from life but I didn't get it done.  Now January 2014, in the online watercolor class instructed by Vinita Pappas (Create 38), her demo for the month was a floral which turned out beautifully.  I needed the push with a deadline to finally try a floral from life.  I bought a pretty bouquet at Trader Joe's that had some white daisies with dark centers which really appealed to me.  It was fun to paint and I should try this more often.

It came to mind, that in addition to my current plein air painting, maybe I haven't tried a watercolor floral from life after all of the flowers I painted when I was illustrating greeting cards.  The watercolor flowers I painted for the cards were usually pretty detailed.  The whole card with calligraphy, which I did first, then painted the illustration, took quite a long time, many hours.  All of the petals, leaves, and stamens were outlined with a crow quill pen first, then painted.  The complete opposite way of painting that I'm doing now.  Both were fun though!  I'll add a scan of just a few of the many many cards I painted featuring flowers.  You see the difference!  

8 x 10" watercolor

Seller's Publishing, and Renaissance Greeting Cards