Back to flowers for this week’s video ! I’ve chosen to paint marigold !
Marigolds are not my favourite flower at all. But when they are backlighted as they are in this reference picture, i have to say that they are really delicate and they inspire me right away !
There is some difficulties in this painting, at least for me. The first difficulty is about the gold edge around the petal. I’m not sure i’ve overpassed this difficulty. I’ve chose to not paint this area, taking the risk to paint it anyway because it’s such a delicate detail. I could have use some masking technique (gouache or masking fluid) or i could have scratch the paper to reveal the edge. So maybe i should try the same subject again with another technique !
The second difficulty is about the petal color. It’s a very particular color that changed a lot with the lighting. It goes from a brilliant gold to a firy orange to a dark red with a note of earth tone. I decided to work with a mix of nickel azo yellow (gold note), aussie red gold (orange note) and quinacridone burnt sienna (red earthy note) and this time it was the good decision to make. I really love that mix and it’s very close to the real color of the flower. And it also easy to variated from gold to dark red by tweaking the mix.
Painting marigolds in video
Supplies :
Brushes : Escoda Último nº18, Raphaël petit gris 903 nº12.
Paper : Arches hot pressed.
Colors : Indanthrene blue (Sennelier), Amazonite genuine (Daniel Smith), Nickel azo yellow (Daniel Smith), Aussie red gold (Daniel Smith), Quinacridone burnt sienna (Daniel Smith).
And here you have the finished painting (click to enlarge) :
