Tulips for Spring

It is finally looking like spring around here, so my attention has been turned to spring flowers. One of the premiere spring flowers are tulips. The subject I used for my latest watercolor drawing. For this one I used various photographs of tulips to create a composite scene. I am not sure I am totally pleased with this, and may revisit the idea to create something I am a bit happier with. The composition isn't as tight as I usually prefer. And oddly enough I am not sure watercolors are the best media to use to paint tulips. Tulips are glossy and watercolor on watercolor paper isn't. So though I can leave white areas to simulate light highlights it still doesn't give me the feel of a tulip bloom. This is more true for the original painting/drawing than for the scanned image you are seeing.  A scanned image is not exactly what the human eye sees, something for the viewer to keep in mind.

I thought you might like to see what the painting looked like before I added the watercolor. So below is a scan of the tulips inked but not painted.

You can see that without the added color some of the backgrounds are fairly close in value to the flower or leaf sections. The added color makes the lack of contrast less apparent.

One last image for you on this Good Friday. Below is the finished Daisy's Band drawing.

It is OK, but I think I should have used a different color for the daisy's petals instead of the yellow/gold. It works but I think it might have been better with different colors. I fear I just wanted to get this over and done with so I didn't take the time to test the colors before I started. I doubt that I will be revisiting this idea. I did the original drawing last summer around the same time I was working on the other 4 in the series and have now moved on to other ideas. I often find it tricky to try to go back to something once I have moved on.

As I mentioned today is Good Friday on the Christian calender. Not only is Easter late this year but it is also the same for all Christian denominations. Usually the Orthodox Christians celebrate their Easter one week later then the rest of Faithful (they use a different method to determine the date). I no longer really celebrate Easter, but for those who do may you have a good one. It is also Passover this week, so may any Jewish readers also be celebrating their Holiday in an appropriate way.

Almost forgot to mention that today is also Earth Day, celebrate by picking up one piece of trash that someone else has tossed. If we all did that, the world would be a cleaner place.  I also hope you managed to check out Google's page header for the day - very fun animations.  On that note I will close, but remember that comments and questions are always welcome.