Flowers Painted on My iPad and Some of My Painting Processes

On the veranda the other day I noticed the Camellia bush was in bloom. It has lovely crinkly white flowers; some of the petals are edged with a hint of pink. It should go into the garden soon, yet it is doing very well in a pot. I decided to paint it..this is the finished painting above and below are some of my painting processes.

I took a photo for reference and began a painting of it on my ipad in the “Art Set Pro” app. *I use my finger, rather than a stylus.

Some Painting Steps

I began on a pink surface. As you can see at the right; quite a strong pink. I liked the way the white and greens looked so fresh on it. It was only towards the finish of the painting that I realized it was just the right colour for the pink petal edges and used an eraser in places to reveal it. Not something you can do with a canvas and paint – very handy.

Composition.

Then, I added the greens and the other flower, in the background to the right of the main flower..I wanted to capture more of the gold stamens. I decided it would also help the overall composition by reflecting and establishing the main focal area – the middle of the large flower. However, I think the the gold colour of the stamens and the tight cropping, already brings the viewers eye strongly to this focus point. I used a little oil pastel along the way.

It’s handy to be able to enlarge part of the painting, at times to do some detail work. As can be seen here

on the left. After working on my painting on and off for a few hours, I realized that all of the inner flower colour needed changing. If you compare finished painting at the top to this one here, below; you can see the colour here has a more lilac hue.

I relooked at the flower and photo, and proceeded to mix up some greenish paint wash which I painted across the middle part of the painting. Then I smudged it a bit. You can see in the finished painting, I left in, some of the lilac.

In Conclusion.

There is a tightness to my finished painting, which I don’t like much. I usually achieve an agreeable level of loosness in my drawings, and I’d like that effect more in my finished paintings.  To a degree, I can manage this in my watercolours, but struggle with it when I paint in acrylics – I rarely use oil paints.

With all its faults, it finished up ok, (hmm, should have made the petal edges more crinkly) and actually printed up quite nicely.

I think I just need to do a lot more painting. Yes, I know this is paint in an art app, yet the way I have to work with it, is surprisingly similar to the way I paint on paper or canvas!

Practice, practice, practice..always a good thing; whether on paper, canvas or iPad. 🙂