Paintings of tulips in acrylics.

I have recently completed some paintings of tulips. These have been inspired by the lovely flowers in my garden and from visits to public parks such as RHS Wisley and Regents park in London.  All the work is in acrylic paint.

I did this as a small painting. Initially as a test for a larger painting. However, I ended up completing this one, as I enjoyed doing it so much!   Below is the larger version. I have changed the colours a bit, and the composition is a bit less busy.

The two paintings together, to get a sense of scale.

I also did the one below. This is a backlit study of tulips. The see through quality shows some interesting new shapes within the petals.

My next painting is a group of tulips, These were more white in reality. I really exaggerated the colours to get a more dramatic painting. I am not very good at painting white flowers, as I love big bold colours too much!!

Here are some of the paintings mounted and packed in cellophane ready for sale. I shall also sell these as prints. I may produce them as greetings cards later too.

Some of these are on sale in my Etsy shop  have a look here at affordable prices as I am selling direct to you!!  Others are available at Artfinder. there is a link on the sidebar.

A painting of Parrot Tulips. Step by step.

My latest painting is of four parrot tulips. I have a selection of these attractive vibrant flowers growing in my back garden at the moment. However when I stared the painting they were not in bloom. So I worked from last years photos initially, but was able to take inspiration from the real things as I completed the work.

Here is the finished painting.

Tulips in my back garden.

Here is how I did the painting!!

Working from photographs initially, I drew the outlines in pencil,showing different aspects of the flowers. I am working on canvas. I then coloured the background black. I used System 3 acrylic at this stage.
I then painted in some of the yellow areas on the flowers plus the green stems.

Above are the next two stages of my painting.  I added red and orange areas to the tulips. There is very little detail at this stage, just simple blocks of colour. I am using a size 4 brush for most of this stage.
I then added some stripes of jade green to the background, and started to texture it with blue and black dots.

I then used a mixture of Chromacolour, AJ Vallejo acrylic gouache and Turner acrylic gouache to complete the painting. The entire surface of this painting is impressionistic dots. I had only intended to do this on the background ( a technique I use in many of my paintings! ) but extended it to the flowers too. I like the fact this painting looks so realistic from a distance but breaks up in to blobs of colour as you get close to it.
 I use a range of different reds, oranges and yellows plus areas of pink, purple brown and white to give definition.  I worked with brush sizes 2 to 000 on the dots.

I varnished the painting using a mixture of matte and gloss varnishes. I have found that this gives a lovely semi shine to the work and really enhances the colours. I use varnishes by Golden.

The weather was lovely and sunny so I was able to finish this painting in the garden.

The painting has now been framed. I used a simple black floater frame around the canvas. The painting has a lot of work in it so a simple frame was all that it needed. I am not a fan of fussy or over decorative frames. Most of my canvas work is usually left unframed.

This painting will be entered in to  the Society of Floral Painters exhibition in Chichester 20th May to 7th June.

Painting of tulips. Step by step.

Here is a a painting I have done with the theme of tulips. It is a bright study that looks at the interaction of shapes, as well as the negative spaces between the flowers. I have exaggerated the colours and the light and shade contrasts. This will eventually be used as a greetings card design.

Here is how I created the painting. 

Initially I drew out some outlines. trying to get a good balance of shapes to fill a square canvas.

I then added a wash of colour over the background to make the flower shapes stand out more. This was just some purple ink I had leftover from another project. The ink ran a bit, and was messy...but at this stage it did not matter!

I then blocked in, , some of the basic colours I would be using, to get a rough feel of the idea. It looks very basic and simplistic at this point. This was mainly to check the composition worked.

Next I worked a bit more in to the background colours, using unmixed colours, to strengthen the design. I am using acrylic paint. 

I then started to play about with the background shapes, creating simple swirls and areas of colour.  I also added some extra colour to the tulips. I have introduced some pink areas, and started to block in areas of petal detail.

After this I continued to work more in to the flowers and the background. I am starting to work with smaller dabs of paint, which is my usual style! I am now doing the detail with Chromacolour paint, which is a type of liquid acrylic.

This is working toward the final painting now. I am adjusting colours and adding finer detail. I have made more green and turquoise dots in the background. I have put more yellow back in to the flowers.

Here, again, is the final painting. I have refined the detailing, using more layers of fine lines and dots of paint. The colours have been adjusted a bit more, working in to areas of light and shade.

I shall put this up for sale soon. I will add the details here when I do so.

What do you think??   Comments always appreciated.