New Iris Paintings

I have a show coming up in June that I am trying to get some paintings ready for. I have been wanting to use some of the photos I took last April of my irises.  So I finally started on a pair of new 10" x 10" paintings today. Above is the first painting.  I am going to work on it some more tomorrow.  I am not totally happy with the dark purple areas.  I will probably work on the background also.  I don't know if the light green works with this iris' color.

 I worked on it a bit more.  The photo isn't great but you can see the added details a bit.  I brightened the edges and darkened the shadows a little also. I also washed a dark blue over the background.

I worked on the other canvas today.  I found a great photo of my favorite light blue iris.  I like the profile perspective.  It looks nice with the top view of the purple iris.    I am still going to work on the background colors of both to unify them.  Right now the purple one's background is darker because of the blue wash I did.  I am tempted to just go with a dark brown on both.  I love the contrast it gives, but I have done a lot of paintings with dark brown backgrounds and I think I want to experiment with something new.  The blue iris still needs some definition but it's mostly done.

 Well, I decided to go light blue on the background of the pink iris.  I ordered more canvases of this size and will be doing at least two more for this series.  I will most likely sell them together as a set.  I like the look of these two so far.  I think I will probably do a yellow iris with a pink background and a white or purple/lavender iris with a yellow background.  It should make for a nice set hopefully.

UPDATE:  I got the canvases in this week!  I am 99% finished with the paintings.  I will set them up in my living room and look at them for a few days to be sure there isn't anything else I want to change.  I find that if I "live" with a painting for a few days I can usually pinpoint any changes I want to make.   I really like the way these are turning out. 

UPDATE:  I did make some new changes. I wanted to bring out some deeper color in the blue iris.  I also lightened the purple/pink iris and added some highlights to the lavender iris.  The yellow iris got the most new work done.  I added a lot more detail to the upper petals portion.  I think I'm really finished this time.

Church Mural

I started a new mural yesterday. It is going to be an island/ocean theme. Here are some photos of the blank walls and my first day's progress.

This is the nursery. It will have trees and birds along the sand colored area. Sky above and a dock with kids fishing and a dolphin along the ocean wall. I have chalked out the dock and some trees but it is hard to see in the photos.

Below is one wall in the large auditorium. It will have trees/island along this wall and a pelican standing on a post with ocean waves and sky on the rest.

The last photo is the progress made in the main hallway leading into the kid's area. It will have a large sailing ship and some seagulls (you can just see the chalk sketches). It is almost done. The church wants a cartoon feel to the artwork.

Day 2: I got the other side of the hallway done today and added some seagulls. I got called away before I could finish the ship and the other two seagulls. It is coming along nicely though, I think.

Day 3: I started work on the check-in desk area. There will be a small island painted on the wall behind the wave

I finished the seagulls and the ship (below). The hall is finished.


Here is the finished ship. It's so interesting how the sails look different depending on which side of the ship you are looking at. See how the two front sails look large below but above they look narrow.

Day 4: I finished the wave on the check-in desk and the island on the wall behind it.  Also got started in the large auditorium and the nursery.

Below is the wall in the auditorium that will have real posts and ropes.   It looks really cool.  They have to varnish and sand the posts before installing them.  I am going to paint a pelican standing on the middle post.  I did all the island sketches on both the nursery and auditorium but you can't really see the chalk in the photos so I didn't post them.

Below are photos of the nursery progress.  I finished all the clouds, the dolphin & ocean waves.  The dock is coming along nicely.  There are sketches of two kids sitting at the end of the dock fishing.  I'm not sure if you can see them in the photo.   The last photo shows part of the island which will have large palm trees and lots of detail.

Day 5:  I focused on the Nursery again today.  Most of the island is completed.  I will be adding another parrot and some flowers and more greenery.  The children on the dock are still needing to be finished also.

Day 6: FINISHED the Nursery!!!! There will be a hammock hung between the large palm trees in the back corner.  I think my favorite thing in this room is the parrots.  They are so cute.  Tomorrow I will start on the Auditorium.  It will probably be another day or two of painting before I'm all done.

Day 7: Had to stop work on the island in the auditorium a bit early today.  They were laying carpet.  I got most of the ocean wall finished and a lot of the island done too.

Day 8: Finished Island Wall and Pelican.

Day 9: Painted flowers and fish in the bathroom and did some finishing details in the ocean wall in the auditorium.

FINISHED!!!  Whew!
This has been such a fun project.  I think children's murals are one of my favorite things to paint.