Painting peonies

After I finished my Chaos painting, I was pretty sure I could not face painting something simply black and white again - at least not for a while. Inspired by a few documentaries I had watched, conversations I'd had at the time, and general ideas about the world, I wanted to paint something about femininity. My first attempt was many species of my favourite flower - peonies, as well as a few blue anenomes, over my own face on a black background.

the first flower

I hadn't ever painted flowers before, and I enjoyed it a lot. They each used a lot of nice different colours, didn't take very long, and looked effective together once finished. I had a difficult time painting the skin behind, firstly as it was difficult to create a smooth surface when painting in between the flowers, and secondly as it is difficult to blend acrylic colours - it would have been nicer to do this with oil paint. 

tea and painting

black background

Although I am not totally happy with it, I do like the finished painting. The black background provided a clean finish and makes the flowers stand out nicely.

finished painting

"vulnerability"

I wasn't totally happy that this painting said everything I wanted it to, so I quickly planned a follow up, this time with oil paints...only it turns out I had hardly any white oil paint left, so I opted for trying out a new medium - oil pastels. I'd tried using them a few times before for colourful abstract things for A level art, but this was my first try at making an actual picture.

As with acrylic paint I had a tough time blending again, and found that the textures layered up weirdly and made little chunks of pastel which needed to be brushed away. The pastels easily picked up pieces from other colours, creating small flashes of unexpected colour throughout which I really liked, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. 

"feminist"

I am particularly happy with the waves in the background, the vibrant colours came out really well in the medium - one that I will definitely come back to again, but for now I think I've said everything I wanted to say with these pieces. Until next time, tot zo!