Step by Step Floral Wreath

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will remember that I attended my sister's wedding in the US in March. I have shared some of my experiences in the blog posts linked at the end of this post. Recently she asked me to paint a wreath for her where the names of her and her husband, as well as their wedding date can be commemorated. For reasons of privacy I will not post a photo with that information, but I thought I would share the process photos for the wreath itself.

    Because I wanted to include flowers from her wedding bouquet in the design I did an initial sketch before beginning. I made changes in the final design but the rough sketch gave me the opportunity to make sure that I included the important elements. I have also included flowers which are specific to the region that they met and live.

 Such a design takes a while so I worked on the majority of it in the evenings. the result are rather darker photos than usual.

    Here is the cat around midnight- waiting for me to go call it a night. She sleeps next to me while I work. A studio cat is the perfect companion. Except for the times when she walks through wet paint. Trying to clean paint off of paws is a challenge indeed. Thankfully that has only happened twice.

 I started with the magnolia since I have painted so many magnolia blossoms in the past. I love these flowers and have a tree of them in the garden.

 From there I began filling in the other larger flowers looking at the overall picture to make sure to keep a balance of color.

 At this stage I began to really lift out some of the detail, I used both fineliner and inktense pencils to create a crisp graphic look. I also balanced some of the pastel tones with deeper blues to intensify the image while retaining vibrancy. Flowers can sometimes appear washed out from across the room. This should be visible.

   Once the main flowers were in place I went back in and added small Hortensia and cherry blossoms to fill in any gaps. And that is it. Once it has been scanned I will add the names and date.



To see the posts of my trip to Washington DC and its Museums check out these links:
- US Botanical Garden
- Museum of the American Indian
- The National Gallery
- Old Torpedo Factory

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