Painting #152 - June 25 - still life from life

I spied these ditch lilies (more commonly known as day lilies), grouped up around the outside of the bathroom window, and they inspired me to paint them, so I went out with the scissors and cut a few stems and decided I needed leaves also, I took them in and put them in a medium size vase, and then took a bunch of pictures, probably a good thing that I did, since the flowers wilted before I got this one done, so I started it out from life but ended it with a photo.

I chose a blue background because of the orange, I just felt I needed a little punch, and it worked, this one just about jumps off the canvas, yes, I did it again, I painted on one of those watercolor canvases, it's 12" x 12", I know, I told you I was going to start painting the small ones, but this just cried out for that 12" canvas, I really thought that it wouldn't take that long, I usually paint flowers much faster than I paint landscapes, I deliberately decided to just let these be slightly abstract, and I know from your view, they look pretty photographic but they really aren't. I didn't blend much (of course that had a lot to do with the surface, it is coated with gesso and doesn't lend itself to much blending, you can do it, but it's a dry brush type of blend). I started with the flowers and leaves, then decided to put the background in as an afterthought, I kind of like these canvases since they are gallery wrapped, that means that you can paint on the sides and after it's sprayed to seal the paint on, and you don't have to frame it, I carried the design right around the edges, so if you see buds going off, and leaves going off, and flowers going off, and the vase going off, it moves around the edge, I really like it. I did ramp up the color a bit, the flowers had a tendency to be all the same value so I added some red to set them back, well, it looked so good that the other flowers said "I want red too", well, not literally, it just seemed the thing to do, I worked on this off and on all day today and I'm now about to close this down and get to bed, so, I really love this painting, and sure hope you do too.