Acrylic painting of 4 Irises. Step by step.

I have just completed a new painting. Yet again I have used irises as the subject matter!! I really do love painting irises!

Here is the finished painting, followed by step by step how I created it.

I have painted this in my favourite medium which is acrylics. I stared with regular acrylic and added detail with Chromacolour acrylic, as I progressed through the work. It is painted on canvas.

Firstly I drew a really rough outline of where I wanted the flowers to go. I like the cropped effect of them going over the edge. it breaks the background up into interesting shapes.

This was painted over a painting I gave up on. Hence the messy white paint background I used to cover the old one up. 

Next I isolated the flowers by painting a strong turquoise background. At this stage I am not sure if this will work as the final colour...but hey, it will do for now!

The next stage was to start painting in the flowers. I have done a lot of purple irises in other paintings, so was keen to try something different this time. I rarely use yellowy tones as I cannot get the contrast I get with deeper colours. So orange, red and brown would be needed to give definition and shade.

Following this I started working into the other 3 flowers...and yes, I have gone back to my favourite purple and white!!

I then added more foliage, and some buds. I also started to break the turquoise background up with a few other shades.  At this point I have decided to keep this sort of colour scheme for the background, but need to avoid it being flat.

Following this I work some contrast in to the flowers, especially the yellow one. I add dabs of paint to give some interest to the background. The swirly pattern also leads your eye around the painting.

My next stage is to add dark contrast areas to the yellow iris. Also to work a bit on the buds and stems.

I then deepen all the shading on the swirls in the background. I also work some fine details in to all the petals. On the yellow iris I introduce some lime green, and on the purple irises, some blue.

It is almost finished. I work in some smaller dabs of colour on the stems and buds. I put more white on to the purple irises. I do not want this to become too realistic. I want the pattern of the paint strokes to stylize the painting. I have to be careful not to over work it!!

At last the finished painting!!  A bit more contrast here and there. A bit more subtle change of colour work...and its done!!

This will be up for sale soon as prints, cards..... and at some point the original too. 

I will update this blog post with links to where you can buy the items .

A picture of an Iris, using paint and pencil crayon

I have just completed a picture of an Iris using mixed media. I used acrylic paint and pencil crayons. 

I used to use pencil crayons a lot but found they did not give the depth of colour I was looking for, or sharp enough contrasts.

My solution has been to do an under-painting in acrylic.  I use Chromacolour which is a very dense liquid paint. You can use it watered down to make a watercolour, or glazed effect too.

I used several different pencil crayons. However, they were mainly Caran Dache and Inktense, both crayons you can use wet or dry. I used both methods in the painting. Sometimes starting as a dry layer and adding water with a thin brush afterwards. Sometimes I just put the crayon in the water and used it wet. I then softened the edges with a brush.

So my first layer was paint, followed by shading and detailing over the top with pencil crayon. At the end I went back, here and there, with some more paint over the top. This was mainly white and pale yellow paint to increase areas of highlight.

The background is rough textured shading as a contrast to the flower.

I am quite pleased with the result, as I haven't used this method for awhile. I will probably improve as I practise the techniques..but, hey, you've got to start somewhere with art and its always great to watch your progress!

This may end up as a card design or a print. I may even sell the original !  Whatever I decide I will update here on the end of this posting.