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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The Iris Project



The Iris Project

began because I am a former florist and love flowers
and we grow lots of iris I wanted to be able to paint.

That's when the struggle began.
I could not get it right.
But I would not give up!

I'll show you some of the iris I am surrounded by in my yard


 Don't ya love this pink one?
I do!!


This is next to my house and these are the very common blue iris.
They grow really thick together and the good news, they don't let weeks come up in there.

This color does not show up well here, but they have a beautiful iridescent color near the center.
 

This is a little better look at the above iris, but it still doesn't show its true beauty.
     This is almost a marbled one of deep blue and white.
I have another blue and white one that hasn't opened up yet.

It's no wonder I'm so fascinated with them.

I have also been working on improving my drawing abilities so I did this drawing of an iris hoping to get a better handle on painting them.


I was not unhappy with my effort to draw an iris with some realistic qualities.

On to painting one.

In my next exercise I gave myself 10 minutes to get something on a damaged panel.

I wasn't concerned about the background either.
Just get something on this panel that looks more like an iris and less like a kindergarten project
.


Again, I was not unhappy with this effort, especially since I got it on there in the allotted 10 minutes.

So on to my roof slates, which is where I was going with all this effort.
I wanted to paint irises on some of these slates that I would want to have.


I'm happy!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

6 comments:

  1. I think you did a great job, and I really especially love your drawing. I know how hard these are to paint. You have a lot of irises! I cracked up about what you said about the kindergarten project. Now, my question is...did you paint from life or paint from one of your photos?

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  2. I didn't go out and stand in my yard, this time, but I did cut some, put them in vases and worked from there. I now have a lot of slates and garden stones finished for Art in The Garden next weekend in Augusta, KY, in addition to lots of art. Next week is framing week.

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  3. Hey are any of these iris from our garden? If so we want to commission some drawings! That would be so cool to give Kevin's parents since we got the starts from them who got them from Kevin's grandma. Good memories for all. :)

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  4. Painted from life! I'm looking forward to hearing about your show...

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  5. I don't think so Effie. But I'll ask Jim to make sure.

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About Me

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Ghent, Kentucky, United States
I'm a nature artist and I love to paint old barns, rivers and lakes, trees and fence rows and flowers. I work almost daily. You can purchase paintings by contacting me at slgraves6@gmail.com and there is also a tab across the top of my blog for available paintings and one for small paintings with buy now buttons. You can also purchase through my Etsy shop using the name of Fine Nature Art. . Thank you so much for stopping by.