“Blossom” Creative process

1st process:

Observation method:

With this method that i used before having any ideas, i could make the flowers well done ( i mean with volume and texture) , yet the shades were bad, because as the original flowers were White, and i wanted them to have volume and be well defined then i ended up doing very gray and contrasted flowers and when i had to do the ones that had darker shades, then i did it way to dark, and the contrast between the two was kind of lost. That is why i decided to make the final Project with color, so there would be no confusion between the elements, mostly between i want to highlight, and the ones i don't.

Another thing is that drawing while watching the object in real life, it´s shades or position change constantly. So its harder to catch the image to be able to draw it. That is why by copying the object from a photograph is easier.

2nd process:

In this little drawing, which i did not even finish, was when i wanted to make it imitating one of my photographs from my photography Project. I wanted to show mostly the idea of my general flowers Project, of it doesn't matter, what we do, or who we are we all have something in common, which is death, our inevitable destiny. The drawing was done pretty good, i mean the lines were kind of alike of the picture´s one, but then i started painting it, and the result was terrible, i just could not make the brownish, orange, white tones of the flower be unnoticeable, to conclude it was so not white it did not even seemed to be a real flower, the color formed was a brownish, beige, white which was not the one i expected, better said wanted. Anyways i guess that the solution would be to add more white, it´s like that obvious to say, but not to do, as when i added white the flower looked too fake and unreal, i could not do it balanced.

Then i realized that i already had the photograph which said the meaning, and it is much more noticeable than if a drawing is trying to say it, as maybe it doesn´t even look like a real flower , this means that for the meaning to be symbolic, the image has to be real first, if not it´s pretty difficult to deduce it. That´s why i decided to make the drawing more colorful and with less meanings ,as the meaning of it would be hard to notice, unless you are a professional realistic artist. Another reason of why i decided to not make the flowers realistic was because , the acrylic dries way too fast, so it´s very hard to blend colors like that(to make it look real), because when you have to blend them you have to think which tones will combine better, and after you though about it the paint has already dried. So i think that with acrylic it´s easier to make drawings that don´t take much of blending, plus if it can give texture, then why not use that quality? For example watercolor doesn´t give you that, but acrylic does, so i will make use of it.

How did I realize that using the textured technique was easier than the natural blending one? Because when i painted the little rose it took me so much time to simply paint only three petals, because blending with dry acrylic is pretty hard. But in the second picture, i painted way much more petals in the same amount of time i did with the other one, in a more simple yet creative way, as this is made by just pressing the brush and moving a little the paint, plus you get much better results!, i definitely see more benefits in doing it the blue flower way.

3rd process:

The second way i was going to paint the flower of the final Project, was by doing it originally as the picture, all with bright colors, such as orange, yellow, red and pink. The problem with doing it with those colors , were the acrylics, as i couldn´t have a mix of such bright colors, so that´s why i decided to make it blue, as it´s a more simple color, were you can obtain easier mixtures and tones with it. Then i used a round harsh brush to make the flower with a more different and original technique, plus it adds a lot more of texture to the drawing, than painting it with a flat brush. By doing it this way, blending the colors don't have to be as precise as if i was doing it more realistic,which was the idea. This particular brush i used, i used it by just pressing once and then moving the paint a little bit in a circular motion. In addition i used much darker shades of blue in the corners and were the petal is attached to the kind of circle in the middle, so this could give an illusion of the flower having more volume . This form of painting, which i am considering to put in the final work, i will probably do it in a smaller flower. What i´m planning to do is to paint all the background in a plain black with a flat brush and then do the technique i mentioned before in bright flowers, so the texture and contrast can both be identified in my work, i want mostly this form of painting to be the one contrasted, i mean for it to be seen clearly. I don´t want this project to be realistic , as flowers can be traduced in a symbolic way, so it really doesn’t matter what it looks like, as long as it has the idea of the flower.

Final process:

My final decision was made when i was scrolling through some photos of a photographer, and i saw a picture which was a bright yellow flower with a very dark background and the title of it was blossom. I liked that picture because it really contrasted that idea, of growing in life, in blossoming. It was represented by a yellow flower growing from the middle of four green plants, which was illuminated by a light coming from above, like if it was growing towards the light, to the good, which means progressing.

What i finally did was to paint that photograph, which had a beautiful meaning. I painted it with the textured technique i mentioned before, which was the one i was going to do, and found many benefits on it. I painted the yellow flower with that technique so the blossoming idea was very noticeable in the painting, then i painted the light from above mixing the black of the background with a little white, but as i said before blending with acrylics is pretty hard, so it finally looked terrible and empty.

That’s when i decided to cut a big part of the actual paper so the flower i drew could be in the middle, and could highlight more, because when i used the longer paper the flower was less contrasted as the ugly painted white light distracted a lot plus it was in a much lower position. Before i cut the paper i noticed that the drawing was starting to be empty because there was too much space between the flower and the light from above, so i made a little bit of grass and larger plants for the space to fade a little bit, but i made them in a sutil delicate way so they wouldn't be too noticeable, and they wouldn't distract from the flower. That’s why i used a very small brush to kind of dot the plants, as you can tell the plants are formed by many little dots. After all i ended up cutting the upper part and the plants are still in the drawing even though now it isn’t necessary. In my opinion the plants distract a little from the flower, yet it is yellow so that brightens it up. Plus the background is black so there is a clear contrast and difference between the image and the background.

Basically, to conclude with this process i realized that even though you think you can have it all planned, you can’t. I changed my ideas of how to do the painting many times and i never planned or thought to make it the way it is now, but i guess it’s better than what it would have been.