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Glass Flowers

watercolor

Today’s piece started out as practice. I feel like every time that I post about watercolor here, it’s about how the painting didn’t go well. My painting today is from one of those rare occasions where I stepped away at the end of the day and I felt like it not only went well, but somewhere along the line it stopped being practice and started being a serious piece. I actually like it!

This watercolor painting is a semi-abstract floral, but it started with me tracing a bunch of differently sized overlapping circles with the aim to just fill them in with watercolor. Somewhere along the line, I started to paint outside the bubbles, and I just kept going until it felt “finished” near the end of the day.

For colors, I used what I think of as “bright November” hues (red, rust, gold, olive green) and contrasted them with cobalt blue. Really sunny days in November are rare in Michigan, but this palette makes me think of them, when the sky can look really blue. I mean… not that blue, but blue by comparison!

I’ll be back later this week with some cozy things from sketchbook: an intricately patterned rug and a bubbling pot. See you then!