When I was demonstrating the watercolours at the gallery a few weeks ago, I couldn't find any thistles on the first day - they had mostly gone to seed. However I had a vase filled with gladioli on the table so I thought that "would have to do".
You can also see the thistle in the background and how I'm having to finish it from photographs, now that the model I was working from withered. You've also already seen it in a slightly more advanced stage. I'm nearly ready to work on it again.
Here is the start. I'm going to play around a bit with this one. First I've completed it with a white background and photographed it for my flower cards.
They are in a square format so it will show the top part only. The name will be done in a cartouche and scanned in afterwards because the final original will be long and narrow.
I was going to paint the background in a plain quinacridone yellow but it looked awful, so I added translucent colours. I'm not sure that I like it, but I like what has happened with colour overlays onto the actual petals which were a rather boringly monochromatic red.
My final background will be gold leaf - or Dutch Metal if I can write on it successfully with a pencil like I write on gold. The cartouche will be done on the gold on the left hand side of the stem. Of course it may all look dreadful but is worth trying. Wait and see!
Here is the front of the card which is now a combination of both the above versions - thanks to Photoshop. I don't think it needs a cartouche any more.
You know, I would never had painted the gladiolus if I hadn't been short of subject matter.
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