March’s Patreon print is different from my usual motif and style so I figured I’d elaborate more about it in a blog post.

I used an orange Col-erase pencil to sketch out the chair and bouquet. I don’t typically sketch out my drawings beforehand, but because this was a subject matter I don’t have a lot of practice with, I thought it would be helpful. Especially since I’m awful at perspective.

Next, I took gouache and roughly blocked in the flowers. I was indecisive with the color palette so you’ll notice the many color shifts these flowers go through.

Straight away I dulled the flower stems from neon green to more blue-green. I painted the floor in the color ‘Smalt Blue’ from the Holbein Artist’s gouache, which has been my go-to blue.

Here is where I’m not sure what I was thinking; I changed the red flowers to essentially the same color blue as the floor and painted the wall in the same hue as the flower foliage, which resulted in a muddied bouquet, and no one wants that.

I went back to the beginning and brought back the brighter green and switched the flowers back to red. My original plan was to leave the chair completely white because I liked the negative space it created, but it was getting lost amongst the weeds - literally. I lined the chair and flower vase using the same smalt blue.

At this point, something still felt… incomplete. I had a big white chair staring back at me. I asked my partner “Should I paint it red?” and was met with an adamant “No.” Once the thought of a red chair entered my brain it wouldn’t leave and so I took a deep breath and went for it.

And immediately hated it.

I told myself we were still in the ugly stage and once I added detail with the colored pencils I would love it, and sure enough, it started to grow on me! I even remember thinking that it had a funky Van Gogh quality that I found (and still do) charming. I lined the flowers with a Prisma color pencil in the shade blue-violet; I find it to be a nice alternative to using black.

The only thing left to add was the shadow and it was done! I’m bad at imagining shadows so I just winged it. What I love is that I used the same blue-violet I used to outline the flowers for the shadow but they look like two different colors.

Art is so rad.

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