The February Challenge between Mick Carney and me was my choice. Taking pity on Mick after the last two choices of mine, I selected a photograph of a group of irises. This is the actual subject and we have to produce a painting from it by the end of February. I intermittently paint flowers but can't recall ever having done an Iris. As Mick has produced a series of these I thought I needed to tune-up by trying a few and this is the first.
Initial version. I wasn't happy with this and decided to consult our flower expert Yvonne Harry www.watercolourflorals.blogspot.com/ Yvonne took one look at it and immediately said `value' I had neglected to accentuate the darks. I should have known this but failed to address it.
`Yellow Irises' 13" x 11" Fabriano Extra White Not
This is the `corrected' version where I have added several darks from a mixture of Indigo and Prussian Blue. Yvonne uses Indigo quite a lot, a standard colour with one of her favourite artists the late John Lidzey. They could probably have been applied in a more subtle way, a legacy of adding them later rather than when the rest is being painted.
I was going to post the original photo but seem to have deleted it. Essentially you have a combination of yellows and greens.
I first made a pencil drawing reasonably accurate but not over detailed, and then masked various bits and pieces on the flowers as there were quite a few white or near white areas. Looking at the colours I thought I'd try the Lukas Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Lemon. as they seemed close to the yellows observed in the flower. Greens were a mixture of Hookers Green (Graham), Sap Green (Daniel Smith) and Green-Gold (Rowney). Where possible I mixed the colours on the paper. Blues were Cerulean, Cobalt Blue and Turquoise (Lukas PB17) for the centres, Raw Umber and Raw Sienna were used in the shadow areas and also some Yellow Ochre (Graham). There is a little Quinacridone Burnt Orange (DS PO48) in a few places plus some spattered Apatite Green (Daniel Smith).
I only used two brushes, an Isabey 6228 Size 8 Kolinsky and the smaller Isabey 6201 retractable.
The main problem I face is keeping the painting nice and loose while avoiding it becoming over detailed and `stiff', or at the other extreme a shapeless mass. A couple more are on the cards before I tackle the Challenge.