Pump up the Color!

Mexican Sunflowers   watercolor   13 x 10

Some would deem watercolor to be the perfect medium for floral work.  I agree that that can be true.  However, my tastes run to the richer, the meatier, the weightier.....too much lightness, for me, can not be taken seriously.  These particular flowers are Mexican sunflowers.  The seeds were sewn indoors, then later transplanted to the garden.  Late summer.....these blooms create a trellis-like entangling, about 6 feet in height.  The hummingbirds love them.  We love them.  The color is spectacular.....the most fluorescent hue imaginable!

Fluorescent?  Lucky me.  Last birthday I received some watercolor pans from Case for Making, a San Francisco-based storefront that carries handmade pigments.  The ones used here (as well as several other autumn projects):  fluorescent orange light and fluorescent flame red. 

In the working of this painting, the entangling of the blooms got to be too much, just too tedious.  That is when I used a blue-tinted gouache to separate the top.  This break almost reads as sky,  and the design benefits greatly. 

Color me fluorescently happy.