Poppies Watercolor Video Demo

Poppies. Michele Clamp. Watercolor. 11″x14″

I have a new lighting and camera setup in the studio and so it had to be tested and what better than a couple of poppies. I started by breaking down the blooms into light and shadow and then layered over the subtle crinkles of the poppes. Tried very hard to not overwhelm the overall lights and shadows otherwise all is lost and any three dimensionality evaporates. The background foliage went in in two layers and a used the darks to bring the petals forward and define the overall shape of the flowers. Just about got away with it and managed to stop fiddling before everything was ruined.

There’s also a video of the whole thing in all the gory detail.

YouTube player

Three Roses

So what do you think of this? I can’t decide. We started this in class but I hadn’t realized how hard this was and there was a vote to abandon it. I finished it off yesterday and can’t work out whether I really like it or think it’s terrible.

Bouquet of Red Roses Watercolor Painting

A delivery arrived today with some new (to me) paper. This is on Kilimanjaro paper (140lb CP) and I really quite liked it. I seem to remember I tried it years ago and didn’t like it but I’ve obviously got more tolerant in the mean time. I will probably buy again.

The subject was roses today and although the result is just a sketch I’ve finally got back into the swing of things.