Painting 34

Flowers, fun to paint and a little more forgiving. You add an extra side to a building, or extra finger to a hand (sorry Mark) and people notice, but with flowers, you can be a little loose and if you add another petal or 2, who's going to notice, unless maybe its a Marijuana plant or something. I enjoyed painting the Zennia and during a trip to the hill country to visit Gail's amazing lake house, we were lucky to find the cacti in bloom. We jumped from the car and ran from bloom to bloom for about 30 minutes snapping photos. There were orange flowers and yellow ones. I was drawn to this particular image because of the composition. I learned from the water lilies the importance of getting a good composition and I felt this was one of the best. I edited the details a bit to place the focus on the blooms. I thought it worked well. I think I'm starting to see the values better and did get some good play on the darks and lights. I think my blooms are a little over saturated in some areas and I need to plan my use of color intensity better in order to get a good balance and focal point. Perhaps some lost edges and less harsh lines would also help soften the feel of the flowers, especially with the blossom in the background.

I had the nerve to sell the painting to my mother. It's nice that my family wants my work on occassion, and I feel a tad bit guilty for selling it to my own mother, but she'll give me money for no reason because she's just that way, so why not take the money and give her something in return.