Ruffly

I realized, this afternoon, that I was actually a day behind, and in casting around for something else to paint in order to catch up, I once again referenced Lynn's garden photos. Several members of the 30x30Direct challenge mentioned how much they liked her close-up of hollyhocks and wondered if they could paint it, and since she said yes to all of them, I figured she'd say yes to me, too. So I set out to study what it would take to paint these complex, ruffly flowers in pale colors on a dark ground—once again going for the "negative painting" mode, even though I don't do it very well!

These are overworked—in the effort to note every little shadow and dip, I got too heavy-handed, putting in too much color almost everywhere instead of leaving more whites to shine. There are parts I like and parts that don't look anything like what they were meant to depict. And in retrospect, I wish that I had been less literal about that fence in the background, because I think it would have been more effective to do a big dark wash on the left while letting the whites fade into the background on the right. But...it was a fun exercise and got me further into the reverse process of negative painting. Thanks, Lynn, for the reference.

DAY 14: RUFFLES

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