Step-by-Step Watercolor Flowers - Frangipanis

Okay, so I've heard MANY different names for these flowers, but according to my mother-in-law, these flowers are called frangipanis in Jamaica.

We went to Jamaica recently and we got some GORGEOUS photos of these flowers, hence my inspiration for painting them!

I love painting white flowers b/c they aren't really white if you examine them closely.  All white flowers have many subtle hints of color in them.  Purples, blues, yellows and pinks.

Color list:
Violet, Hooker's Green, Windsor Yellow, Yellow Ochre, French Ultramarine Blue, Ceruleo, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Van Dyke Brown

After sketching out the initial shape of the flowers, I started with the centers and shadows in the petals.
Paint your centers first and allow them to dry before you start on the petal shadows.  Start with your lightest yellow and deepen from there.   Paint the shadow shapes by wetting the entire shadow area and washing on the desired color  wet on wet.  I also put a cool yellow on all of the buds and leaves as a base color in preparation for the next wash of green.

Here, I'm starting to work on the buds, layering on a mixture of Hooker's, Burnt Sienna and a cool yellow.  I think that I did deepen the colors in the flower centers again to add depth.  

I'm starting the washes on the leaves behind the flowers, wet on wet.  The little buds took a long time to do b/c of the sun and shadow on them.  They will need a few more washes to acquire the depth of color that I desire.

Another wash on the leaves.  Notice how the first wash was all over and in the next wash, I left the sun and shadow shapes on the leaves.  After this dries at the very end, I will soften the edges of these shapes with a clean brush and clean water to give it that sun glow.

This is the first wash into the background...very wet and loose.  You have to work very quickly when adding a large background wash.  I did use ox gall to keep the page wetter, longer.  Even so, I did get a lot of jagged edges on the white flowers.  I worked from the bottom right corner up, changing colors as needed.  Make sure that every wash is completely dry before you start another wash.  You can cheat and use a blow dryer if it doesn't blow the pigment around too much.

Wash 2 onto the background.  Notice how every background wash makes the white flowers pop forward more dramatically.

Background Wash 3...Still not dark enough.  I did do some more deepening of the shadows on the leaves and I brightened up the edges of the buds with a cool yellow....I'm sorry that I cannot remember the name of the cool yellow that I'm using here.

Background wash 4 - I'm pretty happy with this wash.  I'm getting close to the end.  Take a clean brush and clean water and scrub out any ragged edges that you have around the white flowers petals.  Soften out your sun spots and shadows on the leaves and dab lightly with a tissue.  Make sure that your painting is completely dry before you start this softening process.  Also, soften the edges of the colored shadows on the petals to make your painting glow.

This kind of gives you some perspective on the size of the painting.  Notice how the dark background really makes the flowers pop forwards, giving the art an almost 3-D effect.

Here's a close up of the finished product.  Soften out interesting shapes and light spots into your background.

I hope you've enjoyed learning how to paint Frangipanis!  I'd love to hear from you, so drop me a note if you'd like.

Cady@ArtByCady.com

Or visit my website at www.ArtByCady.com

Happy Painting!

Paint My Baby Home....

Good morning!  Yes, this is an art blog, but it's about to become an adoption blog as well!  We, the Driver family, are VERY excited to announce that we are starting the process of adoption!

This has been an absolutely amazing journey for us and because of our love for and journeys into Asia, we have decided to adopt from Vietnam.  Last year, our family took an AMAZING trip to Vietnam and for the past two years, we have been learning the language and culture (my kids speak it better than I do!).  We just have a huge love for the Vietnamese people.

There are a few things that stand in the way, however.  Right now, Vietnam is closed for adoptions.  We are keeping our eye on the situation and praying that this will be the year that it opens again once the Hague Convention issue has been resolved there.

Yes, the title of my blog.  I am literally going to "paint my baby home".  This summer, I am going to put all of my efforts into my artwork, selling, painting, advertising.....We are trusting that God will provide for this venture, but we know that we aren't going to stand around with our hands out!  God helps those who help themselves....not exactly Scripture, but close enough!  lol

Somewhere out there, there's a little one who needs us, who needs a family....who needs two big sisters and a big brother who are going to spoil her rotten.  I can hardly wait to meet her, but there's a huge mountain between us and her right now and we are determined to climb it one step at a time (or one brush stroke at a time!)

When we were in Vietnam, we were in a market somewhere shopping for gifts, I think it was Nau Trang. There was this mom there with this ADORABLE little one who was wearing a hat with red curls attached to it.  She was a riot and she wanted each of our kids to hold her and then she would pinch everyone HARD!  Such mischief from such a cutie!

So, please pray with us!  Amazingly, yes, I would take that awful 40 million hour plane ride again if it meant bringing our baby home!

Step by Step 2 Subject Portrait

An old friend that I went to high school with posted this photo on Facebook of her daughters.....it was simply a sweet and inspiring photo to paint!  This post might have a lot of pics in it, but it'll show you just how many washes go onto a watercolor portrait....CRAZY amount of washes...at least for me...the attention-span-of-a-gnat artist who likes to paint QUICKLY.

Light LIGHT washes are best with portraiture...then you can get smooth skin tones and such.

Shading in the planes of the face with violet and a touch of vandyke brown...just a touch. Permanent rose and a cool yellow warm up the skin tones.

Study your photograph carefully for even the slightest color changes and shades...and never leave the white of the eyes white...always wash them with a light light blue. 

The baby had blue eyes and I used mostly Payne's gray for her eyes.

Adding the tree trunk and the branch....there were some buildings behind the girls, but I was worried about the portrait being too busy.....hmmmm...

Here, I'm completely messing up the background...oy....too many branches and the building was distracting.  Now's the time to PANIC!  Let's scrub this out and do greenery instead.  My paper is buckling now and I need to re-tape it.

First wash of background greenery

I wasn't happy with this wash either....let's do another wash.

Ahhh, much better....while this wash was still wet, I worked in the small circles and dabbed them with a tissue to create a sun-dappled look.  Remember to soften around hairlines with water and a tissue to avoid hard lines.

The previous photos were taken with my iPhone, but the following, I took with Chris' Nikon...they are more true to the original color.....

Size 20x22 - watercolors

"Sisters"

Phew!  I'm tired!  I think I need to go watch another episode of Robin Hood....my favorite!

Happy Painting!

Step by Step Watercolor Flowers

This is one of my latest florals and I have to say that I'm very happy with it for the moment....I say "for the moment" b/c as soon as I paint something better, then I'll  look at this painting and think "eh".

Sooo, white flowers...painting white flowers can be tricky.  Most people think that you just leave the paper white where the flower petals are...nope.  If you really study white flowers closely, you will see that they have a lot of color in them!  Soft blues, purples, pinks, even a bit of green.  I never leave a white flower white.  Here's the first wash:

I actually started in the middles with the yellows and browns. I used Cadmium Pale Yellow and Burnt Sienna.   I built those colors up for depth and then I lightly added Violet and a mixture of Payne's Gray and Ceruleo on the petals for shadows.

Once you paint the petals, it might seem that they are dark and won't look like a white flower, but just wait until the background is added....it'll make the flowers pop forward and look white.

You can see in the foliage that I painted Cadmium yellow on almost all of the buds and other parts of the foliage that had sun on them.  Cadmium yellow is one of my favorite yellows both as a base color and as a color that I use to warm a subject up, even in portraiture.

For the buds, I wet one bud at a time and I drop in a mixture of Hooker's green and burnt sienna. Alternate buds and wait until a bud is dry before you paint the bud next to it.  This is time consuming, but worth it.   I warm up the Hooker's Green with a brown so that it's not too green.

I'm starting to layer in the greens behind the flowers....I'm using a mixture of Payne's Grey in places to cool it down a bit.  I'm painting around sun spots because at the end, I'll soften the edges of these spots with clean water and a brush.

See how the flowers are popping forward once the background is added?

The first full background wash is added very loosely.  I'm examining the photograph for soft subtle background details.  I used oxgall mixed with water so that my page wouldn't dry too quickly while I was laying down the wash.  I had a bit of a problem keeping the edges of my flowers crisp...even though I was painting carefully, I still had to paint quickly.  That's the tricky part.

The background is Hooker's Green, Burnt Sienna, Vandyke Brown, and a bit of Cadmium Yellow.

Background wash number 2....is still not dark enough.  I'm working carefully around the edges, adjusting colors and shapes as I go.  I think that backgrounds are harder even than heavily detailed foregrounds.

Background wash number 3!  Still not dark enough!  But you can see how the flowers are getting whiter and whiter with each wash and you can see how the shadows are popping out.  I've deepened some of the shadows and I did, somewhere in here, deepen the colors again on the buds....I'm kind of working all over the place at this point.  You can see that I still haven't finished the upper left hand corner.

Background wash number 4.....my edges around my flowers are getting a bit jagged, so I need to spend some time softening those out with clean water, a brush and a tissue.  I have lightly washed Cadmium Yellow onto the flower centers again and even onto some of the leaves and buds, just to brighten things up and give it that sun-kissed glow.

Here's the final result!  At the very end, I take clean water and a brush and I soften edges, soften shadow lines, soften out some details in the background.  I DID end up having to correct a few edges with white gouache b/c the background was encroaching onto the petals....oy. But that's alright.

These types of paintings are a LOT of work, but the whole process is a lot of fun, even if it's time consuming.  Actually, I'm an impatient painter, so a painting that takes a week is an eternity for me...lol

This will give you perspective:

It's 17x21 and it's for sale!  $1200.....if you buy it the entire amount will go to the Little Flower Projects Orphanage in China.  Contact me if you're interested....Cady@ArtByCady.com

www.ArtByCady.com

Happy Painting!  

First art blog posting!  Yay!  I originally had a blog on my website, but I've had trouble with the font and such, PLUS, this one is prettier, so here's to artful blogging some more!

This first blog post is to let everyone know that I'm selling my latest piece of art, Jamaican Frangipanis, to benefit a Chinese orphanage that I love called Little Flower Projects.  This piece of art would normally sell for $1200.  If anyone would like to purchase it from me, 100% of the proceeds would go to Little Flower Projects or if you make a $1200 donation, then you would receive the painting.

This is a larger painting, 17x21, it's watercolors and it's an original by Cady Driver!  Me!  :)

Here's a picture of it on my easel to give you some perspective:

Please contact me at Cady@ArtByCady.com or visit my website at www.ArtByCady.com if you're interested!

Thanks!