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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
