Playing Around with some new brushes

Finally some time to play!  I got an artist care package from my bro this week, including some super sweet new brushes.  I've been busy at work... and then have been working on bringing order to the chaos in my life (cleaning house).  Thanks to Martin Luther for some time to play!

First I needed to find something fun to paint.  I love magazines, because someone has already arranged things artistically and taken a photo.  I pulled out one of my magazines and focused on the bunch of flowers in this cover:

Although admonished early on by my mother to never show the origin of an idea or painting, I am including this so that you can see that ideas can come from all sorts of places, including magazine shots.  Because I am "the artist" I can include as much or as little detail from the original photo as I choose.

 

 I made a sketch of what I wanted to paint using a Pilot drawing pen, sort of a sharpie with a fine point.  I used my sketch book, which is large, has ok paper, but not really true watercolor paper.  No paper magic here!  This means I won't be able to truly abuse the paper by scrubbing or lifting.  This also means that I won't be able to saturate the paper with water beforehand in the big areas to get a more even application of color.  Nope, it's rather like the painting with watercolors that we did back in the fifth grade:

I don't always sketch in pen, because it gives the final painting a "coloring book" feel to it, but when I am doing a group of studies, I often include one done in even heavier pen to block out the main shapes.

 Here are my brushed and paintbox.  I know, most watercolorists have bigger palettes, but I like to keep it small and portable.  I put dabs of similar paint in the corners of the pans, so each 1/2pan has about four or five colors to offer and then there are the dabs in the corners of the mixing areas.  The new brushes are black handled.  One golden scepter (green handle) is included for comparison:

Ok, I know, I know... I will take the Christmas tablecloth off the dining room table TODAY!

 The first color is laid down:

I think that the final leaves will be more mono-chromatic.  I was playing with the different greens.

 
 Background color is added:

Adding the blue background color really makes the white flowers 'pop'.

Painting progresses:

More definition to the leaves and the bottom background.  I'm not satisfied with the print of the leaves on the background print, but I was surprised that the thicker new brushes come to a point thin enough to provide the violet line on the background print.

...and more:

Of the three flowers I like the one in the foreground the best.  The one on the right, eh!  If I was using better paper I would lift it and start over!  ::laugh:::   But hey, it's just playing around, right?

Now I am a point where I need to let it rest and dry before I can add more detail.