Painting Irises, in acrylics, step by step

This is how I painted a detailed picture of irises.

This article appeared first on my other blog, artycraftythings. It is one of the most popular posts, so I thought I would recreate it on here too! 

I will show you the finished painting  first, and then take you through the stages of the painting.

Firstly I painted some stripes of  blues , greens and purples. I rarely work directly on a white canvas, I needed something to break it up!! These are the sorts of colours I had in mind for my final piece. I knew the design would be based around vertical lines.  I am using acrylic paint.

I then painted some freehand flowers. These are very crude and simplistic, but gave me a rough idea of the look I was after. You can see I have already changed the colour of the stripes!

Next I sketched on a more detailed iris over the top. I painted it white, so I could just see my drawing through it. I then drew the detail back in again over the top!  This may seem like a fussy way of working, but I find it effective and it enables me to build my painting up in layers,

I then did this again with some other irises. You can see I have started to add detail to the first one I put on. The initial freehand irises are becoming background features!  On the second photo you can see I painted one of the irises orange instead of white. This was simply so I could see it clearly against the one it was in front of.

After this I worked in to some of the flowers, and have experimented a bit with an area of background.  I am also adding a few more greens to the leaves. I have painted out some of the initial background irises.

Next, I decided to add another layer of irises. Rather than full flowers I added mainly buds. I thought this gave contrast, and made it more naturalistic. You rarely get perfect flowers all in the same place at the same time! Also the buds were interesting to paint!

Following this I then concentrated on adding detail to all the flowers.

Now I am working in to the background. I love the negative shapes between the flowers. In all my paintings the background is important. I never paint a flat plain background!!  I enjoy all the swirls and dabs of paint that tie the whole composition together.

Next  I added some more buds in the right hand corner. I thought this space looked too empty. As you can see I played around with this idea for a while, but removed some of  it, as it did not work out!!   You can also see how I changed the background quite a lot. I wanted a high contrast in the background , with light and dark areas, created from small dabs of paint. I have also continued to detail up my flowers.

Finally the painting is finished. I have adjusted some of the colours a bit, and tidied it up here and there!

This painting will eventually be sold. I like it, so I am hanging on to it for a while longer!!

I shall  produce it as greetings cards and prints first. When these become available I shall update this blog post with the details here....

How to paint a rose in acrylics. Step by step.

Roses are just such beautiful flowers. The ones I like best are the ones with subtle changes of colour within them. I also love the really scented ones! 
I am writing this on a cold dark February day. Unfortunately there are no roses blooming in my garden this time of year.

It is best to paint from the real thing if you can. However, if you take some quality photos during the summer months they will get you through the winter. It is best to take the same flower from several angles, so you can really get a feel of the structure as if you were turning a cut flower around in your hand. Also zoom in to get close up details.  I particularly like back-lit roses, where the sunshine makes the colours and contrasts exaggerated.

Here are some photos I used for inspiration for this painting.

Before I started the painting I did some sketches to work out the shape and composition I wanted. The following one was my favourite. It shows the rose at a good angle. I used pencil plus a little bit of black pen to show the really dark areas.

I then did a pen and ink study to work out where I wanted the highlights and shadows to go. I traced the outline from the drawing above, so they would be the same.

I then copied my design on to some heavyweight white card. I painted in the background first to isolate the rose, and make it easier to see what I was doing!

Next  I started to put in some colours. At this stage I am not being too accurate, or mixing the colours much. I am using Chromacolour which is a type of liquid acrylic paint. This is a very small painting and I am working with size 2 and 4 brushes to just get the paint on fairly quickly. My main aim at this stage is to show individual petals. They all look a bit muddled as a drawing. Once the paint is applied it is easier to see what goes where!

I keep going with the "filling in" stage. Now I have a better ides of each petal shape. It looks very simplistic and messy at the moment!

Following this stage when I have filled in the whole flower, I start to be a bit more selective with the actual colour I need for each section. I work over the entire painting trying to get the colours more realistic. This means blending and mixing to achieve the shades I want. I have also added more paint to the background.

I have looked more carefully at the dark and light areas. This gives the painting some depth, and makes the rose take on a 3D effect. Previously it looked very flat.

Next I just play with the colours until I am happy with them. The photos I am working from show a rose with lovely shades of pink, red orange and yellow. I need to recreate these blended colours . I am also starting to layer up some of the texture on the petals. The rose is back-lit so the veins and structure of the petals stand out, as the light shines through them.

The next stage is just building on what I have been doing, I continue to add small dabs of paint to show the petal structure.  I an now using very small paintbrushes , sizes 1 and down to 000.  I have worked more white paint on to the petals to increase the feel of sunshine.

I have now completed my painting. I have finished the petal detailing, and adjusted the colours where needed. I have also completed the background with soft dabs of blue paint.