In this post are a few progression photos of a floral painting I recently finished. I took a photo of this flower arrangement at the Biltmore House to paint from:

A few things about my starting process:

1. I always crop the photo I’m working from to be the exact same proportions as my canvas. Drawing doesn’t come naturally to my ADD brain so I need to remove any and all distractions.

2. I use willow charcoal to sketch with. It can get a little messy but I love that it will wipe right off with a brush or rag if I’ve messed up or when the initial sketch is finished. Also, unlike graphite it will not show through the paint once painted over. If you’ve ever drawn a sketch with a regular pencil and tried to paint over it you’ll know that it usually takes a few coats to cover. I love willow charcoal on paper, wood, canvas and even wall. I always keep boxes and boxes around:

If I’m working on a really detailed picture I usually draw some kind of grid with willow charcoal to keep myself straight. I’ll print of a copy of the image and draw the same grid on the paper.  It’s really hard for me to stay focused on an one part of a painting for more than a few minutes and a grid allows me to skip around the canvas and at the same time maintain some kind of proportion and scale. Also, I can fold the paper into sections and work on small areas without being distracted by the overall composition. It’s an easy way to trick the brain. 

4. I never start with a white canvas….but unlike many artists I usually never put much thought into my background color. It’s just whatever I have leftover from another project. 

So here’s my initial sketch of the arrangement. I used a long thin brush and loosely sketched with watered down acrylic ink:

I’ve been using more and more acrylic ink recently because I love how pigmented it is. Liquitex has a new muted collection of inks that I use. I just dip my paint brush directly into the bottle. They are also great for light watercolor-like washes in the painting:

Once the inks are dry I’ll start adding in some color in different places:

I start to work more in different areas of the painting adding layers of paint. I like to let paint drip….but I also like to let it pool in places (and that requires laying the canvas flat). A few of my favorite “wash” colors are Golden Fluid Acrylics: Green Gold and Quinacridone Magenta. A little goes a long way too…

Sometimes I repaint some areas multiple times with different colors because I like to eventually scrape paint away to reveal the layers underneath. It’s all an experiment really…but with really awesome surprise results:

This is my favorite little scraper from Cheap Joe’s…number 13. Not only does it scrape paint away but it also scoops it up so you can turn the scraper the other way and reapply the scraped paint elsewhere on the canvas:

This is a very abstract version of the arrangement, and I like it at this stage as well:

The smallest petals and highlights are worked into the painting with small brush:

I like adding haphazard drops in places too:

For some “pixelated” texture I used some Text-Ur styrofoam craft sheets as a simple stamp:

At some point I have to decide that it’s finished and here’s where I stopped and signed my name. I will repaint the edges of the canvas if needed to cover up drips and spills and finish the whole piece off with Liquitex Gloss Varnish. 

The very last thing I do is add these sturdy Hangz Flat Mount Sawtooth hangers to the back of the canvas. They are the best hardware I’ve found and won’t ever fail your artwork hanging!

Here are a few direct links to products I use:

Willow Charcoal 

Liquitex Muted Acrylic Collection

Joe Miller No. 13 Painting Knife

Text-Ur Craft Sheets

Golden Fluid Acrylics – Quinacridone Magenta – 1 oz Bottle

Golden Fluid Acrylics – Green Gold – 1 oz Bottle

Liquitex Gloss Varnish

HangZ 20001 Canvas Flat Mount Sawtooth Picture Hanger 

My friend Amanda Evanston is a wonderful artist and teacher. She held a February challenge of #28FebruaryFlowers and I thought it would be another fun challenge to jump into. It was fun to see other artists jump into the challenge and by the end of February over 10,000 paintings had been produced! You can see the paintings associated with that hashtag here.

I hadn’t really painted florals in a while so I started with some small studies on cardboard: 

I liked the texture of the cardboard so much that I just kept on painting these 8×10 pieces:

I did go a little larger throughout the month. Here is just a huge mess of paintings being worked on all at once:

Sometimes the flowers were imaginary:

And other times from a photo…this was small square section of a magazine clipping:

Early on in the month I spent some time at the Biltmore Conservatory to photograph flowers for inspiration:

A flower arrangement in process:

The finished arrangement:

Ok this is the most exciting thing about my art in February…Brett built me a barn wood wall in my studio! Ok, it was actually to cover up some structural work that had to be done….but he went out of his way to make it a backdrop for my paintings:

Here’s the finished wall:

And the thing I love most is that I can nail a gazillion nails into the wall and you’d never know. Here are a bunch of my recent paintings all in one place:

I usually take photos of large paintings as they develop and was thinking about sharing those in different stages if that might be of interest to anyone…kind of a step-by-step progression. I am going to start doing some time lapses too. I cut a small lens hole in a cardboard box and nailed it to my studio ceiling as a camera holder and was able to get the video below. I just need to fix the lighting at my workspace before the next one….the only light here is an old 1950s desk lamp with a bluish light. My favorite part is the slow swirling of the water next to the painting. Any suggestions on what would be the best way to light this space? Hanging a work lamp from the ceiling too maybe? I do have an electrical plug in the ceiling thanks to my very encouraging hubby. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Ashley Hackshaw (@lilblueboo) on Mar 1, 2019 at 2:54pm PST

Also, I finally got most of these painting finished up and listed on Etsy yesterday if anyone is interested. Check back here tomorrow too and I will post one of the first painting progressions. 

Also, I’m really trying to blog more often and I think I just have to be less of a perfectionist. I always try to hold off until I’m done with a project but who made that rule!? I guess I did?! I need to just start posting as I go instead of making it so overwhelming. There I said it so now I’ll do it right? Anyway…thanks for reading!