Changes To The Stargazer Lily Painting

This is the current look of the painting after the knife work.

This was the previous look. The sky had no texture and the color was too cool.

These photos show various stages of re working the sky with lighter, brighter colors reflecting the colors of the flowers. it is adding a lot of energy and life to the painting.

Now, of course I've decided that I want to change the painting again I'm sure that you're sure I've lost my mind but I was loving the look of the lilies up against the grass so much that I decided to pull the viewer back into the yard and work plants over where the sky had been.

I think I'm really going to like it when I get finished with it. What do you think?

I'm much happier with the painting now. It seems to make the flowers stand up better against the background and give the composition a nice contrast and balance.

Re-working a Lily Painting

Here's the point where I stopped working on this painting a year or so ago. It's the BEFORE of this session.

This time I decided to look at the lilies as though I was looking across the garden at them so I began to lay in a bit of blue sky.

The next step was to lay in a dark background to give the feeling of soil to support the grass and other plants I would be adding.

This Is as far as I'd gotten with it by the end of the first day.

I couldn't leave it alone and kept at it until the next morning. Yes, I'm happy with the results.

Lily Painting and Color Changes to an Old Painting

 I've been working on this old painting for 10 or 15 years, maybe longer but some of the lilies just didn't seem right.

You see it here in the middle of the change. It started with 2 yellow lilies and I decided yo make them white so they would balance better with the vase.

Here's a close look at the yellow one.

Here's a detail view where you see it with the others.

This is how it hangs on the wall now. I can't promise not to change it again but for now, I'm satisfied.

Iris and Lily Painting with a twist

This picture doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of this post. I just wanted to see what the painting would look like in black and white.

I started this painting in kind of a rounded format thinking that I might want to use it as a sticker design.

As you can see I soon abandoned that idea and just began to enjoy the work.

This time I decided to try a technique that I'd seen on a painting show by Eke Sommers over 20 years ago. You don't do a lot of shading while you're painting.
You outline EVERYTHING Then apply an even coating of black watercolor over the acrylics and let it begin to dry. Your shading is achieved by removing part of the black coating and allowing the remaining areas of black to provide the shading.

Here it is with the black acrylic paint, just before I covered it with the black watercolor.

This is the finished painting with bits of the watercolor shadows left behind just waiting to be sprayed with a clear coat to fix the remaining watercolor and make it more permanent.

Overpainting the lilies

I'd been struggling with this lily painting for nearly 20 years and just never got it to turn out the way I wanted to so today I decided I needed a fresh approach.

Instead of trying to MAKE it do anything I'm just relaxing into the paint, thinking less and painting more. It's very relaxing to free yourself and just let the work happen without worrying about the outcome.

I'd been going at it with some painting knives recently and decided to reach for some brushes instead.

Red, Yellow, Blue and an unbleached white were the only colors I used today along with a 1 inch, long handled brush.

It was interesting to see the painting submerge itself and begin to sink below the new paint. I can't wait to see what will come to the surface next! Each session is an adventure and I'm sure the end result will be a pleasant surprise to all of us.

Progress on the painting, flower to frame

I don't remember how long this old iris drawing has been in this frame but I needed something to put the painting in and it will have to do for now.

I haven't decided what to do with the drawing yet. It's about 18 years old, maybe more.

This painting was just 3 years start to finish, I've got some that I've been working on for decades.

Lily Painting on Blue

Changes to the Composition of the Painting

  I've begun to reshape some of the flower petals and the leaves...even removed a few.

 The biggest change of course was reworking the lower front flower. I haven't finished with it yet but I think it's off to a good start.

It will be nice to see where it goes next.

Hanging the new painting

 I'm pulling an old Iris painting out of a cherry frame and will drop the new painting into that.

The small picture on this wall is the scrapbook page I made up of the inspiration photos for the lily painting.

I'll be giving that to whoever the painting goes to. I've also written notes on the back of the canvas.