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Author: Nicholas_Simmons, Contributing Editor
| It can make an effective abstract underpainting, too. |  |
 | On to the painting!
Many people enjoy painting flowers. I improvised all of my flowers for years; at least the first 250 paintings of my watercolor career were done without a speck of drawing. I was so excited about the properties of the medium, I didn't see any point in trying to tame it - the paint is a better artist than I was (and still is!). I think it's a tremendous way to exercise the imagination, since you have to look for things to develop, and adapt to the countless situations that arise. However, as I started to work larger, I found it increasingly risky to invent paintings on the spot, and started planning more things out. I'll work from a photograph. Most people photograph flowers in full bloom, and shoot them from the same angles. I photographed a dying bouquet of roses, and concentrated on the undersides of the wilting flowers. This intrigues me more than the basic floral mug shot. Here is the photograph I selected, in black and white. I like the motion, angles, and aura of faded glory. |
| I projected the photo onto the paper, taped to the wall. I use a digital projector. As anybody who has traced large complex pictures from a projector or one of those mirror gizmos can tell you, it's no cakewalk . There are few, if any, definite lines, things look out of focus, and gradations of color and value make tracing a painstaking process of decisions and, ultimately, some degree of simplification, or complication, depending on your point of view. There is, I suppose, an art - an intuition, at least - to it. But it gets lonely - sometimes ugly - out there in the Artist Twilight Zone, eyes burning, neck craned, back aching, hand in a death-cramp. Weird stuff begins to loom in the mind: "If nobody sees this line, does it exist? Do I really want to draw that shadow half way over to the part that might come up to the far edge, if I decide to draw the reflection that meets it across the other side? Does that shape look too much like a pair of _____ ? (fill in the blank) Why am I doing this?" Ahhh, you wants the muse, you pays the dues.
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| The drawing is 34" x 45", and I tried to photograph it, but all you could see is paper. I made a type of drawing that is effective for large watercolors. The maze of passages, when filled with color, look abstract up close, but from a distance create a different effect that is startling.
Getting off on the wrong foot, I did the drawing before I coated the paper with gesso. Ouch. I gave it the gesso treatment anyway, and it didn't cover up the pencil lines much. Can't erase them now, that's for sure! |  |
 | I brushed it on fairly randomly, changing the direction of the brush strokes often, and covered about 75% of the paper. |
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