June Flowers in Bloom

It looks like I've painted one picture in cool and one in warm colors. A white Clematis is front lit while a Tiger Lily has a back light. So far I prefer painting white flowers so Clematis is my favorite. With Tiger lily the colors of shadows were tricky and it was very hard to paint the sun shining through the petals.  Well, I tried to do my best.
 

Magnolia

Magnolia trees have large and beautiful flowers. This particular one grows at my neighbor's front-yard. Also flowers have nice smell, unfortunately I can't paint it :)

Interesting fact: Fossilized specimens of plants belonging to the Magnolia family have been found dating to 95 million years ago. They appeared before bees did. The flowers evolved later to encourage pollination by beetles. 
It is so hard to imagine world without flowers and bees, isn't it?

April 15th in the Garden

Third Day of Spring

ACEO White Flowers

Blooming Summer

When I was a kid I used to spend my Sumner vacation with my relatives at villages near Krakow in Poland. To get there I had to take a train and then a bus. After jumping out of the bus, the first thing I always noticed were the wild flowers in the meadows. With their various colors they welcomed me to the back country paradise. 

For a long time I didn't know why farmers didn't like poppy flowers blooming on their fields and why called them weeds.  I recently learnt why. If poppy seeds mixed up with corn seeds, the flour would have yellowish tint and it gets rotten faster. Lately I haven't seen any weeds in the crops. I guess now we have herbicides that completely eliminate all wild plants. Well, I miss them a lot.

Last year my neighbor gave me a small poppy plant and this year I had my first poppy flower in my garden. I was so happy to watch it develop its bud and finally bloom. I took a few pictures, sketched, and painted it with watercolors. The original painting was sent to Poland to my dear cousin who has the same admiration for these wild flowers as I do.

The painting process is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84uHkM_EBUA 

If you'd like to paint it too you can copy my sketch. Happy painting