Summer ShowStoppers .. the finished painting

Summer ShowStoppers

This painting will be added to my permanent gallery site
Pat Elliott Paintings

Summer ShowStoppers 5

Here come the flowers!

Glorious fuchsias - which brighten up so many summer baskets.
There are two varieties painted here, the single bloom and the showy double.

I adore them all.

Summer ShowStoppers 4

Here you can see I have darkened some of the leaves a little more!

Now you really get a feeling of leaf.
As a painter, I get the anticipation of how lovely the fuchsias will look.

Can you see how painting the leaves a little darker really makes the background look like it has some distance to it?

I still find that remarkable, because the paper is flat, yet I feel drawn in..

Summer ShowStoppers 3

Now I make a mix of a mid green, using ultramarine and cadmium yellow.
With this I deepen and define the background more, to help make the flowers stand out.

I love this stage, you can really get a feel of how your painting will turn out.

Summer ShowStoppers 2

The first stage is to wet the paper.
After that I dropped in two separate mixes, one of alizarin crimson and one of transparent yellow.
This in my mind fixes the background and the flowers as two separate entities.

The hardest part of doing this stage is to walk away and leave the painting alone, whilst the whole thing dries.
If you don't do that, you run the risk of ruining your work.