Painting My House Plants

I finally finished this painting that started as a demo this winter for a group of dedicated watercolour students. Some watercolour paintings of the potted poinsettia were done in red and green and I know one of the backgrounds was a heavily salted beautifully vivid yellow. I had the turquoise leaves and a few of the petals in 'Naples Yellow' (Windsor Newton paints) and the gold background done the day of the demo. Now it is May and in deciding the colours to use to finish it, I pulled out Joen Wolfrom's 3-in1 Color Tool. A triad of Golden Yellow, Aqua Blue and Fuchsia were chosen. The dominant colour is the Golden Yellow so I used a variation of that on the pot and table. The fuchsia was used in smaller amounts directing the eye to the top petals. 

I have misting this house plant daily this winter and it set these lovely mini oranges. In the watercolour group we finished up doing botanical type watercolour paintings. So I've attempted to capture the essence of that orange bush in my own expressive style of painting.

For this one I set it out in a + compostion. I used a harmonious colour scheme with the orange, yellow and green. Then I slipped across the colour wheel to the complement of the orange to a warm blue and placed that behind the two 'center of interest oranges' and scattered more blue throughout.

The techniques I used were to start with a loose 'wet in wet' background. After it was dry I lightly drew in the leaves, stems and oranges. They were painted positively and some were painted around in a negative painting technique. A bit of blue glazing was used on top of two of the oranges near the center to push them farther back. 

The magnolia trees are blooming. Hmm... will I get out to paint them?