It's the time of year when we all have spring fever, and I have tulip fever. Tulips are one of my favorite flowers to paint. I began this painting about a month ago from tulips growing from their bulbs in a beautiful glass vase, purchased at our local Wegmans. I've been posting the progress of this painting on my
Instagram and
Facebook pages, and now I thought I'd share the step by step process here in on my blog. I've heard back from many of you that you enjoy my process posts.
The visual idea behind
Tulip Fever was to create an oil painting that looked like a classical botanical watercolor painting on vellum. I'll explain more in the process section below.
Tulip Fever will be framed and ready for a new home in time for the
Arts in Bloom, Open Studio Weekend, an annual Arts Trail event in Steuben County. You can learn more about the trail here:
artsinbloom.net
I hope to see you in person during this fun weekend. I'll have new paintings for sale, unframed watercolors, cards, and more moon paintings for you to take home!
Tulip Fever Process
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| Beginning Drawing |
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I love drawing. I usually begin a detailed botanical painting with a graphite drawing. Drawing allows me to work out the composition with gestural lines and erase mistakes easily. This painting was done on
Multimedia Artboard—it's an absorbent surface made from paper soaked in resin. My late mentor,
Tom Buechner, introduced me to it 15 years ago and it's still one of my favorite materials to work with.
When I'm happy with the drawing, I spray it with fixative, wait a day or so for it to dry, then begin the first layers of color in oil.
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| First layers of paint. |
The first layers of paint on the multimedia board are mixed with a lot of Liquin. Liquin is a great painting medium. It thins down the paint without dissolving it like turpentine can do. These first layers are similar to the look of watercolor paint, with thin transparent colors.
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| Tulips get color! |
Brighter colors are layered on with a smaller brush. The initial light yellow layer shows through on the petals. After the flowers were painted, I started in on the greens of the leaves.
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| Leaves come to life. |
Life got busy around the middle of the month, my tulips faded away, and I
had to put my painting on hold. So, I scraped up the colors mixed on my
palette, wrapped them in plastic and put them in my freezer. Oil paints
will keep in the freezer for about a week or two. After that they begin
to dry out. I don't know about you, but I hate wasting paint
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| Colors go on ice. |
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For the background of this painting I wanted to see if I could get the oil paint to look like vellum. Vellum is a semi-transparent parchment that was originally made from animal skins. I really like the look of this surface in traditional botanical and scientific illustrations. My animal loving-heart hates the idea of painting on animal skin, but my Artist heart loves the look of it.
I created this look with several thin layers of liquin and paint. The first layer was a mix of yellow ochre and lots of liquin. The second layer was titanium white and naples yellow with a touch of ultramarine blue. Lastly, I glazed the edges with more yellow ochre and liquin. I'm happy with the final look of the background. What do you think?
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| Dried bulbs for reference. |
I finished the rest of the painting using the bulbs that I had saved and dried out. I'm going to try to plant them in my garden and see if they bloom again. I also used photo references to finish the final details in the overall painting.
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| Finishing touches |
Tulip Fever will be varnished, framed, and available for sale in time for the Arts in Bloom Open Studio Weekend. You're invited to see it in person and visit me in my studio on
Saturday, April 28, 10am–7pm, and Sunday, April 29, 12– 5pm. For more information click here: Arts in Bloom
I referred to many different art materials in this post. If you have any questions about them, feel free to message me. If you're in the area, take one of my painting classes at
171 Cedar Arts Center, or one of my
Studio Workshops.
Happy painting!
Bridget
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