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| Daisies in a Paper Bag watercolor on Khadi paper 13 x 10.5 |
Flowers are not my favorite subject. I do paint them, however, as they are certainly a challenge with all of their pieces/parts. And....flowers are really a necessary lesson for art students...there is much to learn: the circle; the ellipse; implied 3-dimensional depth on a 2-dimensional surface. And then, also, how to contain the blooms? My favorite way to arrange them is to lay them flat on a surface, creating a nice resting gesture. Enter the vase. Clear vases offer the challenge of painting stems through glass and the off-kilter illusions tthey provide. I am afraid the often, the vase, which is a supporting actor, receives way too much attention and somehow winds up in the middle of the canvas or paper. Not good.
For this project, the subject was a bunch of humble messy daisies, putting on no airs at all. The paper was Khadi, a handmade paper from India, laden with texture. i chose to put the entire pot in a wrinkled paper bag which seemed appropriate for the subject. The texture in the bag was played down to give more shine to the daisies. More texture than usual for me, but it is complete.
