Daisies and Irises

Daisies and irises

I spent the the last few days working a little bit at a time on this one. I worked the longest session on the first day, laying in the most color, especially the purples.  I am rather pleased with the the way the irises turned out.    While the irises were totally purple, I made the artistic decision to shade them more subtly and leave a bit of white highlight.  I had a hard time deciding how much to do with the daisies.  They are so white that I needed to distinguish them from the background, but not too much to make them not look like daisies.  I think the compromises I made are pretty good, except for the one right in the middle.  I may decide to put a little white back in at some point.  I also went back and used more ink.  I only had the flowers sketched in and after the watercolor was added I thought they needed more definition.

It’s a good thing I decided to paint this now.  These irises don’t last long when cut and when I went out yesterday to get one last one to help me add a few details, they were all beyond use.  Daisies seem to last forever, which is a good thing.  I have a single huge cone flower blooming right now.  Maybe I will pick it and do a daisy/cone flower picture.  The flowers are so much prettier this year with all of the rain we’ve had.  The day lilies are next on the landscaping agenda so look for them in the near future.