Glads

After living with the negative painting of the gladiolas for just a little while, several glaring problems slapped me in the face. The flowers looked "cookie cutter", there were no soft or lost edges, and the basic composition on the right flower stalk was incorrect. You can't really have a large flower on the bottom, 3 baby flowers in the middle and then another larger one at the top...Mother Nature just doesn't work like that. I tried to keep in mind that there was no pencil drawing done to start with...just blops of color dropped around on a very wet paper. So, one of my artist friends gave me a little sponge she got at Michaels and I went to work scrubbing colors out and bleeding colors into the background with the damp sponge...and...wonders of wonders, it worked!

I was able to scrub out 2 of the baby flowers on the right stalk and make one larger flower out of the shapes. I rather liked the blues and greens that became the back of the flower when I came in with the purplish/red background wash. I also lost the edges on the lower left flower and between the two top flowers at the top of the left stalk. I had intended to make 3 small flowers up there, but wound up with the two and that hit of the top of the green stalk. The background is just a jumble of different colors and shapes.

I like the look now...although I'll live with it a few more days before calling it finished. At least the colors are clean and fresh on most of the flowers. I think I'll be ahead of the game if I just wait on Kay Smith to come and show us her technique for this look as I do love the wet-in-wet looseness of florals. So..for once..I'm putting the brush down...right now!