The Untamed Flower Garden

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. An untamed garden is one of my favorite places for plein air painting. However, the multitude of colors, values, and shapes can be overwhelming so it is best to have a plan. I like to start with a viewer so that I can zero in on small areas and chose my subject. Next I decide what flowers will be more defined and and which ones will be only suggested. If all the flowers are painted with equal importance the painting will be boring.

In this case I decided the yellow flowers would be featured. If they are painted with more definition then other flowers can be suggested with simple marks of color. As you can see, none of the yellow flowers are exactly the same, they are all different sizes and painted with different yellows. Look at the violet flowers along the right border, without the yellow flowers, they read as abstract marks.

Green leaves can be tedious and I like to think of them as shapes of different values and temperatures. In the center of this painting you can see warmer greens and as you move toward the borders the temperatures get cooler and the values get darker. For the darker greens along the top and bottom borders I mixed perylene green with olive and the green leaves in the center are combinations of olive plus different yellows and blues. I tapped some of the leaves in the center with a tissue while they were damp to get lighter values. Adding a few red flowers here and there worked well because red is the complement of green.

Next blue flowers were added near the top of the composition with cerulean blue and ultramarine blue. They add interest because they are the only vertical flowers. Finally, I wet some lines with the tip of my brush and lifted out a few stems. This is much easier that trying to paint around those stems with darker values.

I realize it can seem like a lot to think about while you are painting but the more you think your way along the more natural it becomes. Sooner or later you will realize that this becomes second nature and painting becomes more fun. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton