Widow's Tears

This is one of my latest oil paintings, of a Widow's Tears flower. Widow's Tears are in the Commelinaceae family, and usually bloom in the summer, but I happened to find this one during the winter. It was during last year's drought and this was about the only flower I could find that day. The blooms on this plant only last one day before dissolving, so this was an extra lucky find.

Widow's Tears, 5x7inches, on Claybord, initial pencil transfer.

I started the painting by doing a pencil transfer from the photo to the panel. Transferring lines instead of doing a freehand drawing saves a huge amount of time, and reduces the chances of messing something up.

Widow's Tears, 5x7inches, on Claybord, in the middle of  painting process.

Flowers in the Commelinaceae family are easy to identify, because they always have three petals, and one is usually tiny. The story I heard once is that the Commelina family was an Italian family a long  time ago who had three sons. One was a doctor, one was a lawyer, and one didn't amount to much. These flowers are found in most of North America east of the Rockies, and they thrive all over the Texas Hill Country.

Widow's Tears, 5x7inches, on Claybord, restart after using the wrong shade of blue.

In the middle of the painting, almost done actually, I used the wrong color of blue and screwed up the flower's face. So I repainted it with a solid mid tone mixture made from zinc white and ultramarine blue, and started again from there.  

Widow's Tears, 5x7inches, on Claybord, finished.

 All of the white in this painting is Zinc White, which is transparent, and more important in the long run, non-yellowing. And the fine highlights are scratched through the paint layers with a knife to expose the bright white of the Claybord, which is a very useful technique. I'll get a better photo of the finished painting soon, just waiting for a cloudy day when the light is right.