tulips – Page 2 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

The View from Below

A Bowl of Tulips

Today I had a morning appointment. After I came home, I had lunch, took a nap, and then migrated all sorts of toys to the patio. My neck got sunburned! Amongst the toys were a set of Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils by Caran D’Arche, a bowl of tulips, a brush pen, ink pen, and paper.

This is probably the third time I have used these pencils, and this time around I am happier with the results. I have watched a few videos from YouTube on using them, and the tips were worthwhile. For example, layering and laying down glazes to get better results. Being patient! My own painting skills are better than they used to be, so my sense of light / dark is not as klutzy as it was a few months ago. And, without having the need to produce some work of art, I was a lot more relaxed. Of course, sitting in the sun didn’t hurt any.

In general, my own experience with watercolor pencils is that they are not strong enough in color to produce the type of strong contrast I seem to prefer visually. Maybe it’s just my limited experience. Nonetheless, I am happy with the results demonstrated in this little study.

Dreaming of Tulips

It’s the dead of winter in sunny old California, but tulips are not to be found even here until the spring. The beauty of tulips, especially the pale ones, is the vast and subtle array of colors found within a single blossom. As a kid in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, I loved the arrival of the tulips through the snow.

97. Tulips

Having photography as a hobby sometimes yields pictures that can be used to create more pictures. I decided to give up the no-lines approach for now (though it is a great exercise to learn how to make shapes – I was just really frustrated by what I was doing), do some pencil roughing, and then work one color area at a time. First the tulips in shades of red, orange, and yellow, mixing some oranges as I went. Next, the greens of leaves and stems, consciously determining the areas to negative paint later on, as for the flower petals. Finally, the bowl. Before the whole was done, I went back to each area and tried to create a sense of depth by deepening other areas and being careful not to touch the areas I had left deliberately white.

45.3 Tulips (Iron Gall Ink) – Painted

I should have done a value study here, but not in the mood, and not having a lot of time, I just decided to paint, hoping I “saw” the shadows enough. Pretty tulips turned into a rather ugly mess! Still, it is a learning experience, and the doing is often more important than the final results. I am quite sure my paintings will be gone and not found in a museum.