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Friday, May 27, 2011

Lorrie # 18 - Butterfly Moment

Butterfly Moment, watercolor 6 x 9 inches
This picture began as an experiment in using clover leaves to imprint their own shapes on the paper. I tried to put paint on a clover leaf and press it onto the paper, but the leaf completely resisted taking any paint at all! So instead I put some clover on the paper and dabbed paint around it... then played with other textures of vegetation nearby. In the midst of this a beautiful butterfly landed briefly and took flight again before I could even begin to figure out what it looked like. No worries, we can have fantasy butterflies, right?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This composition is so spontaneous. I like the effect you got using the clovers as a stencil of sorts. What a cool idea to use the things growing around you in your sketching! The butterfly landing in the middle is so serendipitous.

liz Cutler said...

I love the spirit of experimentataion, and favntasy, I especially love it when it works out.The colors move well throughout the painting.The loosness and the variety of your brushstrokes combined with the stencil makes it an exciting painting..

Kelly said...

...very cool, and great use of the clover leaves! I love the color palette too.

Earlier in the year, I did prints with fern leaves. I had the same problem of the paint resisting the leaf. I read in a book I had to take a Sharpie pen and color the leaf with a Sharpie...and then apply the paint. It totally worked! I guess the Sharpie seals away the oils.