Day #1

Demo Tiger Lilies – hansa yellow and cadmium yellow light were flooded onto the dry paper and watered out at the edges with a wide wet brush. More colour was dropped into the wet paint to saturate the paper with rich oranges and yellows, then randomly torn pieces of wax paper were placed in the wet paint to create texture.

The wax paper was removed then a wet round brush was dragged through the still slightly damp paint to produce subtle linear shapes.

The paper was dried thoroughly. The bottom half was rewet carefully, then a green mixture (cadmium yellow light and ultramarine blue) and more red/orange was dropped into the wet paper to create soft forms in the foreground.

Yellow/orange and red shapes were dropped into the wet paper to create soft forms in the upper left, plus a slightly stronger red/orange tone was used to bring out part of the flower form on the right. This oddly ending shape was later watered out at the bottom edges (see below).

After leaving for a minute or two, some of the hard shapes were softened with a gentle swipe with a clean wide brush to make them more subtle. Slightly deeper tones were dropped into the wet paint to create soft drama.

Inverting the paper, neutral colours were “washed” over much of the foreground, carefully stopping to bring out a petal edge here and there and making it darker or lighter as needed. This step helped to unify the foreground and connect the different sections of the painting. At this point, the edges and corners were addressed – “painting all the stuff I don’t like so much first”.

After the previous layer was dry, quiet colour (repeating what was already there only a bit darker) was used to bring out more and smaller shapes around the outer parts of the blooms, plus deeper colours were placed inside each bloom and pulled away into lines to form the stripes prevalent in tiger lilies.

After the previous layer was dry, more  quiet colour repeating was used to bring out more and smaller shapes around the outer parts of the blooms, plus deeper colours were used to bring out a few foreground stem shapes, watering away one edge and leaving one crisp edge. These darker areas were placed loosely in a diagonal pattern to create the sense of movement.

The finished Demo ”Tiger Lilies” by Marilyn Timms

More negative stem shapes were brought out, then the dark tips of the stamens (on the main blooms) were directly painted. The final step was the signature and year it was painted.