Exercise: Abstraction from a natural form
For this exercise I chose a flowering magnolia bush, helpfully growing in my neighbour’s garden. I liked the curvature of the petals and after a few sketches decided on the view of two flowering heads shown in the photograph:
The abstract version turned out much less abstract than I had hoped: the internal struggle to make things more realistic is a difficult one to overcome.
I prepared a ground of burnt umber and using gesso to thicken the paint and lemon yellow with titanium white to trace the outlines of the petals into flowing shapes.
Unfortunately this turned out a little life like, and, felt like it was the kind of paining that would be bought at Next, to match yellow cushions.
I had contemplated thinking about painting teh Birch trees in my local park for some time;
Insert magnolias’s here
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