I love flower markets. They were prolific in European cities that I visited and also in major U.S cities like New York and San Francisco. I was always drawn to the bright colors mixed all together in similar silver and terra cotta containers. They offer a welcoming spot in winter especially and a way to bring home a lovely piece of nature.
I really love to paint garden or meadow scenes where the flowers are randomly planted and
different from each other. Since they are similar size; the focal point has to be achieved by stronger
color or grouping of flowers. The arrangement hast keepthe eyes moving around the picture plane
never going out of the four sides. Another method of interest used isvto create ares of darker green
I enjoy painting bouquets of flowers; either very close up or on a table with other objects. This one is a focus mainly on the actual blooms. When I started this I was looking at a vase of flowers but I took some artistic liberties arranging the flowers in my head. If you notice, I used repetition , an important principle of design by repeating colors and shapes in the bouquet to make the viewer’s eye move around the plane of the painting. Another way I used design is in the background. I used pattern to make the plain blue more interesting. I actually did it with 2 blue shades that had a stronger contrast to each other. It was pretty but it called attention away from the flowers so I toned down one of the blues so they are almost the same value. A little artists “ trick”.
I remember reading the story about Thumbelina; the story about the tiny girl who ended up falling in
love with a flower fairy prince her size. This flower forest is just the place she would have loved!
Available on Dailypaintworks.com Libby Anderson
