Tag Archives: yellow

A Little Bit of Summer, A Little Bit of Winter

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I had forgotten about scents, so few flowers really have a strong scent that at least to the male nose last. Today I was handed Cilantro flowers, of which I was a bit skeptical, White flowers and light green stocks, but then I remembered how much I like the way cilantro smells and tastes of course.

I grabbed the test piece I’ve been messing with all spring.

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Today is pleasant, cool, but pleasant.

I have put a bunch of different things on this, but hadn’t made notes on what was what, so I unfortunately don’t recall what made the greyish color around the horribly rendered sword, I kind of like it, the color not the sword. I think it was meant to be a scimitar or the like and well, it is sword shapedish? Yes, spellcheck…I hear you.

Anyway, the Blue beneath the sword is a wet green-blue, very nice. It comes from a Purple Iris that is abundant right now. It is very flaky, lots of debri.

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The Cilantro flowers turned a most interesting hazy reddish-brown and smelled wonderfully like Cilantro. Still has a good scent to it 20 minutes or so later. We have some Basil coming on and tons of Oregano, maybe I should do a piece with only scented stock…perhaps it might stink both literally and figuratively. I make myself laugh, that is all that matters.

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I have a reddish brown and two greens, not sure what to make with that. There have not been any images in my head of late, very empty space as far as hard visuals go. I want to sketch better, losing sight of any image because you cannot capture its essence well enough can be a bit challenging on the artistic nerves.

Palette Book Reveal

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I went to the store today in search of the holy frozen Pizza grail and found it, but along the way I found something else that was yellow and orange, kind of like cheese on a pizza.

As I pulled in to the parking lot, I saw a woman carrying out a bright orange Lily. It wasn’t a Day Lily either, which I have had no luck with yet, but the asian kind, like the Black Lily that has great purples and that fabulous yellow. I went in and went to the flower section.

Bursting from the shelves were bright orange flowers and huge anthers loaded with pollen. I immediately wanted to load them all in my cart, but I was after pizza and I was also on a budget. I picked out a medium sized one that has lots of blooms left to come on, but that also had a few open and ready for sampling.

I was happy and excited until I looked up and saw the even bigger purple and white Lilies, with bulging dark orange anthers, the orange Lily had a brown anther that I wasn’t sure what color it might give.

I plucked a couple of the anthers off the other plant and dropped them in with mine, grand theft anther…all in the name of color.

I decided now was as good a time as any to put the samples in the current Palette Book and take a few pictures to show what it looks like. This is from one of the orange pages, the book is separated in the old grade school ROY G. BIV format.

Here you can see the color results from the Orange Lily, the first is from the leaf, it dries a little on the peach side, with streaks of purple in it from somewhere.

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The anther gives a nice burnt umber brown that will go really nice doing dirt, forest floors and maybe tree trunks. Unfortunately, though I love yellow, red and orange, I am definitely in something of a blue period. They give me calm.

The next picture is the whole page thus far. In addition to the orange Lily and Anther, you see Orange Marigold and the Anther I borrowed from the white and purple Lilie’s.

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It is important to note, this palette book is more of a thick card stock paper, what I picture a water color painter would use. I have yet to try these out on canvas. Someday soon I hope to find a canvas paged book to start a canvas palette book with.

If anyone knows of something like that that exists, please let me know.

I’ll do more palette pages over time.

2nd attempt- Starry Night with Black Lily

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Though the black Hollyhock did cast the original demo piece in to chaos, it did inspire me to try something else. Though I didn’t actually end up using the Hollyhock on the next painting. This one is made entirely from the petals of a black Stargazer Lily and the yellow, the best yellow I have found thus far, from the pollen covering its anthers. Sadly, the ones in our yard have finished blooming for the year and taken their golden yellow with them.

The pollen carrier is pretty small, about the size of a large rice kernel, but produces a strong vibrant yellow and is great for going over other colors as it does not wash them away in its application.

I set out with a pretty direct idea on this one, something I don’t normally do. Here is the full image, followed by a couple of close ups.

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