"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Orange Day Lilies

I think that field lilies should be the state flower of ohio - they are so prolific along the highways in the summer.  These are a hybrid lily but remind me so much of the field lilies. This painting is going to be the subject of my lesson for the class I am teaching on Monday night.  It is 7" x 11" and is painted on Canson 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper.  I used orange and red orange, sap and hooker's green dark with alizarin crimson added to the greens for the darks.  I first poured the oranges onto wet paper and then lifted areas that I wanted to be lighter.  After drying it well, I mixed a series of different greens, and after wetting the background with clear water, dropped in the different greens indiscriminately right up to the edges of the flowers.  I finished the painting by negative painting darker greens around  the leaves.  The last step was to detail and define the flowers with deeper orange.  I darkened the orange with ultramarine blue for the shadows.

10 comments:

Christiane Kingsley said...

Beautiful colors - soft oranges and rich greens! Your negative painting is so well done! Again, your students are so lucky!

irinasztukowski said...

Hi Barb,
I love your Lilies. And it is a great idea to make the background flowers grey-ish cold. This gives a very 3D look and definitely brings the front warm flowers forward.
Great job!
Thank you,
Irina

Unknown said...

It's gorgeous! I love your backgrounds. They are so vibrant, yet still in the background... Very nice!

Autumn Leaves said...

Reminds me of a beautiful tropical forest, Barb! Wish I could take one of your classes!

Watercolors by Susan Roper said...

There you go with that negative painting again! I remain in awe of your ability to do those so well. Please tell me that you lifted out the spiky leaves, though...or did you actually paint those shapes negatively? That would take me weeks to do and they still would not look this good.

Barb Sailor said...

Christiane -thanks so much for your positive comments - they are very much appreciated.

Barb Sailor said...

Irina...thanks for commenting on the background flowers because I had reservations about painting them in the grey colors. I am glad to know that you think they work.

Barb Sailor said...

Katherine...I tend to go overboard with color and worried about my greens in this painting - I am glad you think they are okay. Thanks!

Barb Sailor said...

Thanks, Susan. Yes - the entire background is done through negative painting - even the spiky leaves, and actually it doesn't take too long. I thought about lifting out shapes, but didn't.
Thanks for your always positive support!!!

Barb Sailor said...

AutumnLeaves - tropical forest, eh? I don't know that you need one of my classes, but I do know that I would like to paint with you!