Let's paint Spring pansies

Pansies are considered Winter flowers in Southern California and I love mixing them with early Spring flowers for a fresh look. I am painting a series of tea cups with flowers called "Tea Thyme" and thought it would be fun to share with you the progression of a simple painting.

First, let's look around my garden for inspirations.


Finding inspiration . . . . .

Here . . . .

There . . . . .

Everywhere . . . . .

Bentley, My Studio Assistant is helping me look for inspiration.

Hmmm . . the pansies smell good!

"I think we have found our inspiration"

I think the pansies would look very nice in a blue and white tea cup with some of the pink inpatients to add a touch of Spring.

Now that we have decided what to paint, let's get started.

The first step is to base coat the canvas with a light coat of Naples yellow and then sketch in the tea cup and pansies. Next I paint the cup and saucer with a light blue violet. This will be the base coat for the white.

Next I paint in the dark greens as I paint from dark to light -this gives me an idea of where the flowers will be placed. The tea cup will be blue and white, but first I need to base coat the tea cup using blue violet. This will give depth to the white.

Then I paint the flowers in using the colors I want them to be. This gives me a feel for what the overall painting will look like - notice I paint in the flowers in solid colors. The next step will be to develop the flowers using lights.

Here is the finished painting.

Wishing everyone a lovely week. Thank you for visiting my blog and for taking time to leave me a comment and following my blog. If you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special please leave me a comment or send me an e-mail.