I'm so excited to be working on some new tropical plant paintings. The first one I did was of colorful flowers and the second one is of colorful leaves. I painted them using gouache, which is an opaque form of watercolors. Opaque meaning the color is solid - you can't see through it. I love gouache for that reason. It allows me to build up lighter colors over dark ones which is not possible with regular watercolors because they are transparent, so must work from light to dark and save the white of the paper for highlights.
I'm planning on scanning these images and separating them into individual plants using Photoshop. Then grouping them in a pleasing way to create a repeating pattern for things like fabric, bedspreads, shower curtains, and other large items. I am a complete newbie to this type of work and I'm still learning Photoshop, so this project may take awhile. But it's so exciting to try something new with my art!
Here are the two paintings:
