First Solo Painting

I decided to attempt to paint my first solo panting. I took art classes when I was younger and recently went to a Sips N Strokes event. But I have never just painted all by myself with no help. So I went to Micheal's and bought some painting supplies. I set up my table in my library, taking the proper precautions to cover the floor! I used a picture I had taken of some flowers as an inspiration. I started of course with a blank canvas.

I then painted the whole canvas with thick, black paint to form my background. This was my favorite part because I knew I could not mess that up:-)


Next, I took a soft pencil and drew the design I wanted. Now this was one of the most challenging parts because I can not draw. Even though I was copying the flower from a photograph I had to do it several times before I had the petals the way I wanted them. I wanted it to look like the photograph with some of the petals very long and finger like and some of them smaller and chunkier.

That took me awhile and then it was time to mix my paint. Now this is also very fun! It does make me nervous though because it is so hard to mix the same, exact color again so I have to make sure to get the right amount I need. I used red, blue and white to mix this purple color.


Don't I just have the fanciest, most expensive palette you have ever seen? So I then began filling in the pencil outlines with the paint. This was pretty nerve wrecking. I messed up several times and it took me 3 days to get the petals where I wanted them to be. But if I messed up a petal too bad I just took the black paint and fixed it. So my purple shade did end up being a different one from the original. I had to repaint the whole thing at one point since I couldn't mix the right shade again. So when I was done it looked like this:

Well I knew it wasn't done yet because it looked too blank and boring. So I added some white details to the flower petals. I still don't necessarily like it but I don't want to do too much to it and ruin it. I have decided to be happy and content with my first attempt and leave it at that. I hope in time I will get better. We shall see. So here is the final result:



It's a good start and it makes me happy that I was able to move out of my comfort zone and attempt something that I am not good at. Next I am going to attempt a painting of a bunch of hydrangeas in a pot. We'll see how that goes:-)