color studies with

Faded Florals

Hello lovely artist!

The first spring blooms have appeared here in France, and they put me in a floral mood! Right now in the garden we have snowdrops, primulae, crocuses, narcisses, bluebells and even white roses! So it was lovely to spend an afternoon indulging in this floral vibe and painting two romantic little mixed media pieces.

My inspiration was a magazine feature on the theme “faded florals” and I had a lot of fun using it as a starting point to play and experiment. I even tore some floral patterns directly from the pages, and used them in my background:

One of my all-time favorite creative exercises, is to “borrow” a color palette. Because to me, when it comes to color, it’s a lot more about fun and intuition than about the color wheel. When it comes to uncovering your personal style, your authentic artist voice, I believe that the key is to tune in and really pay attention to what feels good to you, what you love, what intuitively feels like home to your soul. There are colors, and color combinations that will instinctively resonate with you, like they “belong” to you. And they do!

A great exercise is to quickly flip through a favorite magazine and notice the pages and images that just stop you in your tracks and make you go “Oh yes! That! I love that!!”, you know that happy feeling, this mix of excitement, statisfaction and a kind of longing all at the same time. It’s a sure sign that there is something there that’s really “you”, so why not take it as a starting point for some artsy explorations?

Once I had chosen my image, I really took the time to notice all the colors. Some are more obvious than others, so a fun little game is to “go through the rainbow”: first, see if you can spot some reds and pinks, then oranges, yellows etc. All the way to purple. At first sight I didn’t think there was any purple in my magazine image, but looking closer, I noticed some tiny wisteria blooms in a floral pattern. Had I not taken this time to observe, I would have missed it entirely! But once I realized it was part of this palette that appealed to me so much, I was able to add subtle touches of it to my paintings and it did help them come alive.

After noticing all the colors, I also took the time to observe my image some more, paying attention to neutrals, black and white. At first there didn’t seem to be any black at all, but then I realized that a key ingredient of the page’s design was the actual text, in black over white of course! And it made me want to add some text to my background.

Once I had noticed all the colors, I pulled out all my corresponding art supplies: paints, inks, crayons, markers, pencils… anything and everything! Just seeing the supplies spread out on my table made me want to have fun and play! I taped two little squares of watercolor to a board, being very clear that these didn’t “have to” turn into actual artworks, but just little color studies.

Abstracts and florals are my two favorite themes when it comes to exploring color, because I find them so forgiving, so here I combined a bit of both: just some loose flowers over a simple, abstract background. No overthinking, just playing and noticing where the different collage elements would land intuitively, and trusting the journey.

In the end, not only did I enjoy the process tremendously, but I also love my two little paintings: that’s a bonus! It was not the original goal though, and I would have been happy to simply keep them as “studies” and a learning experience. But I often find that the more you loosen up and the least expectations you have, the better the art will turn out in the end.

Happy News! Spring is coming and so is my floral painting class, “Flower Flow”! Florals are such a wonderful, versatile and fun subject to explore plenty of fun mixed media techniques. I’d love to be your guide on this lovely adventure!

Whether I paint them, grow them in the garden or gather them in bouquets all around our home, flowers always bring me joy and make me smile. Painting flowers is so satisfying and always makes me happy! Plus it’s my favorite kind of art to have on my walls.

I hope today’s post will inspire you to just play and explore YOUR colors. And more happy news: I have filmed the whole process and will be sharing it in an online event hosted by one my artist friends in a few months! I can’t tell you more now but to stay in the loop, make sure to join my email list here:

I wish you a sweet, delightful and creative day!

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